A New Frontier To Conquer - The 2025 Club World Cup Thread

Play Vinicius to the right of Mbappe. Not wide just central right. Let TAA occupy wide right

 

1st place is ours if we beat Salzburg

 

Looks like Real Madrid has their fate in their own hands. Now for the NBA finals

 

Xabi said that Rudiger said something racist was said to him and he is backing Rudiger in this.

 

Same issue here when we went to the Miami game. As much as I enjoy Real play in person, for the first time I did not feel it was worth it after the heat, parking, and walk.

 

Last year Copa was a disaster too

you’d think these big nfl stadiums are prepared for this but they are not

 

With their backs against the wall, down to 10 men inside 10 mintues, the team goes into survival mode, the "automaticisms" of the Carloball era take over,; and, voila, instant results.

Vini as the orchestrator of the attack with the team trying to get him the ball early and often. Jude and Fed with those lung bursting runs from midfield to crash the box. And a convincing 3-1 win.

Unfortunately I think todays game kind of crystalizes what needed to happen. The club didn't need Carlo to get out of the way, it needed Mbappe out of the way.

Still some room for improvement, however. Early on with the score still 0-0, Tibo commits what seem to be like increasingly reocurring blunders. He spills a easy to save shot right into the penaly spot and an opposing player, who luckily was surprised at such an amateurish mistake and muffed the rebound instead of calmly passing it into the back of the net. It's the second such kind of mistake in consecutive games that the team is only saved due to the lack of quality and inability to finish simple chances by the opposing teams.

Add in Asensio's error and it seems like the players are having some trouble adapting to Xabi's instructions, which became obvious when he decided to abandon what was working and switch to a 3 centerback defense. Pachuca instantly scored and itg made for a nervy final 10 minutes whereas the team had been on cruise control and comfortably winning playing Carlitos way.

 

Even Thibaut is sick of Raul Asencio's lack of football IQ and discipline. I love Thibaut telling it how it is. Asencio will likely be 4th or 5th choice once all CBs get healthy. What a moron. Thibaut had to make like 8 saves and basically hold the team together in order to win.

If Madrid lost this game, they were in real trouble for this tournament. Facing Man City might still happen, but it would be nice if it can be avoided.

Goal difference will also be important because a RB Salzburg win and an Al Hilal win would result in a RM K/O. Right now RM has the tiebreaker on Salzburg by a 1 pt goal diff lead. Not comfy at all.

 

I am concerned that Asencio might be a one season wonder.

 

😊 FOOTBALL FRIENDS 😊 pic.twitter.com/3m6bJY499V

— Real Madrid C.F. 🇬🇧🇺🇸 (@realmadriden) June 22, 2025

 

Highly likely. There were cracks in the glass towards the end of last season, but now it seems like the dam has broken. If someone wants to be a starter at Real Madrid, they at least need a good head on their shoulders. Asencio simply doesn't seem to have it. I doubt people would've been as forgiving if the result didn't save the team's blushes today. He really should be offering to carry Courtois's gym bag. He made 10 saves to keep the team in the CWC despite Asencio's best efforts to sabotage the results.

Thankfully Raul's suspended for the next game, so he can't impact proceedings.

 

I posted in the other thread. It could be a sophomore slump. The signing of Dean Huijsen must have put pressure on him. The starting CB combination next season would be Rudiger and Dean, everyone expected, but he knew that he needed an impression. The last two games were important to him. Let's see how he develops after Xabi Alonso finalizes the pecking order, and he accepts being the backup. Hopefully, he will become our new Nacho.

PS: Konate is a free agent next season. He is likely to be our target replacing Rudiger in the longer run.

 

Nacho would have walked into the starting lineup at most CL level clubs. He was a NT player. He sacrificed a good chunk of his career staying.

Asensio had a ways to go to become a “Nacho”.

 

I meant a good long-term backup like Nacho.

Of course, I hope that he would become one of the best in the world.

 

Have Mbappe play Central right.

 

Raul made mistakes (and big ones) last season too, it's just that he was a new face from Castilla and some fans wanted to convince themselves he was the second coming of Sergio and Carlo was dumb not to have tried a castilla player, now that the circumstances are different, he's looked at differently, this stuff happens all the time, goalpost movement depending on the circumstances, nothing new to see or read here, all of a sudden, after 2 games he's rubbish, who would have thought........

 

Change Konate to Saliba and we'll agree.

 

I hope he can at least replicate Nacho. That would be a very serviceable player for us.

 

Varane was also looking really solid from his first minutes but didn't grow so much and retired quite early in the end. Pepe and Ramos were also having a lot of brainfart moments early in their career but you could easily say that they were better defenders.

 

They will go after both, but one of them will be signed.

 

I am quite surprised that you're posting this tbh. It's not necessary to rewrite history here; he's not the second coming of Ramos, nor was he ever seen as one. That's a ridiculous way of engaging in a discussion, and frankly a bit dishonest. If you were having a discussion in good faith, you'd have to concede that Asencio, all things considered, had a good debut season.

Regarding his future: I think the majority of posters saw him as a potentially good back-up option, perhaps with the ability for more. Now, if he doesn't iron out some of the rough stuff that he's shown last season and these first two games, his absolute best case scenario is 4th or 5th choice, but the more likely scenario (if he doesn't work on the rough spots) is that he'll be gone before he knows what hit him. That's how this club works.

But he's young, and has a manager that apparently likes working with young players, making them better. So it's up to him. I'm not ready to give up on a young player (that showed promise last season), after some rough performances. But everyone is obviously entitled to their own opinion.