Daily Thread: 03 March 2023

The Daily Merengue is a place where you can feel free to discuss all things football. Do not be alarmed by the overt RMCF bias. It’s in the name!

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Defeat

As Ancelotti stated in the press-conference, it was one of the best games Real Madrid made regarding to high pressing. For me, it was nice to see this good high pressing, especially against Barcelona. We had 65% of possession - something very distant from what we saw in previous game against Barcelona, in Real Madrid played in a low-block. Ancelotti stated:

We played a good game. We pressed them a lot and we wanted it. It was difficult to find space because their defense was very solid.

Xavi said his plan wasn’t to play the way they did:

The plan wasn’t to defend so much. We wanted to have long possessions, win duels. But with big teams like Madrid you can’t always dominate.

But Real Madrid had offensive problems. Los Blancos weren’t able to create many chances. Ancelotti said:

Complete game? It’s impossible to have made a complete game with zero shots on target. That’s right, Real Madrid didn’t shot on target in a home game.

Courtois disagree:

As usual, the game was covered in the immediate reaction, player ratings, 3 questions and 3 answers articles. There is also an article on stats from the game.

Following games

Two La Liga games on weekends (finally a week without midweek game), so we face Liverpool again.

• Betis (March 5)
• Espanyol (March 11)
• Liverpool (March 15)
• Barcelona (March 19 - La Liga game)
• Real Valladolid (April 2)
• Barcelona (April 5 - 2nd leg CDR semfinal)