Open Thread: April 12, 2022

The Open Thread/Daily Merengue is a place where you can discuss anything and everything related to football. Feel free to discuss the topics presented here, or start your very own discussions! The Open thread will be posted every day by one of the mods: Valyrian Steel, Felipejack, YoSnail, Ezek lx or NeRObutBlanco.

Matchday!!! Real Madrid must forget the first leg happened.

Los Blancos play their best football when they’re fighting for the game. They must forget about the 3-1 lead and not let Chelsea come at them again and again. Complacency will kill us. Bigger leads have been overcome so Los Blancos should look to score often and not rely on defence the whole game. Good luck and Godspeed to the royal whites. Here is the squad list for tonight’s game.

OTD: If there’s anyone to take inspiration from it’s this man.

What does Tuchel have up his sleeve? Tactical surprises anyone?

Now Thomas Tuchel is an excellent coach as he showed in Dortmund and last year by winning the Champions League in his debut season with Chelsea. Be rest assured that he and his side have not given up despite his defeatist “the tie is dead’ and “we will get battered at the Bernabeu if we play like that” comments after the first leg. That was most likely to get a reaction out of his players and he certainly got one against Southampton.

Tuchel also made a decision that breaks the Champions League tradition in order to conceal his plans ahead of Tuesday’s second leg match against Real Madrid, according to Spanish outlet AS. The visiting team usually holds one last training session at the host stadium ahead of a match in the Champions League. Tuchel reportedly decided to keep his squad at Cobham training centre and will only fly to Madrid to play the game. It will be interesting to see what team he puts out tonight.