The fact he has the number 31 means he isn't registered with the first team. At least with regards to La Liga. I think maybe they meant registered for the CL squad, likely to meet home grown/country grown quota.
Number between 1-25 would make him ineligible to play with Castilla, I think. It was same with Vini during his first season. Castilla players can play upto 8 games or sth with first team until they are given senior squad number. Jacobo was called up for some La Liga games last season but never played. He was in the squad vs Atalanta too. _______ 🚨 Real Madrid believe that there are no good players on the market that are at Real Madrid’s level. No signings are expected. @FabrizioRomano pic.twitter.com/PXX0NQE5lN— Madrid Xtra (@MadridXtra) August 15, 2024
🚨 Jacobo Ramon is Real Madrid's CB 'SIGNING'. @marca pic.twitter.com/RBFY7eddCc— Madrid Zone (@theMadridZone) August 15, 2024 🚨 Joan Martínez was set to be part of Real Madrid's first team this season - but his unfortunate injury changed the plans. @marca pic.twitter.com/oqjsnMJA2a— Madrid Zone (@theMadridZone) August 15, 2024
Rodrygo will not leave Real Madrid this summer. A source at the club says: "He doesn't want to leave. He wants to win with Real Madrid, he doesn't want to go to any other club. Not to Manchester City or any other."— @La_SER pic.twitter.com/xZ9Kq1UGen— Madrid Universal (@MadridUniversal) August 15, 2024
In May he'll have an interview with Time magazine saying how much he respects the Pip and how sky blue brings out the color of his eyes.
Really not understanding the Rodrygo discourse going on. I saw Mario from the Athletic also say something about Rodrygo taking the year to see what happens.
Good for him Neither do i, even BDO winner Figo never scored as many goals in one season as he has for us from the right, i had to go check some wingers out to figure out why he is considered disappointing...... not a lot going on out there that's a hell of a lot better, past or present, high volume scorers like Cristiano, Messi, have really skewered the way some look at goalscoring, and they aren't even wingers, that bar is super high for some reason
He's a national team player on one of the most competitive, prestige national teams in the world and he'll want to retain this spot. If he finds himself on the bench and this ends up making him lose this status, he'll be worried about his future. Am I extremely not worried.
Brazil right now are about as good as Granada. Rodrygo, Neymar and Vini are the only WC attackers. If Rodrygo loses his spot which he never will even if he got benched at RM it would only shoe how mismanaged that team is.
Then we take off the Real Madrid fan goggles and understand that there's thousands of players playing in the world which would present competition and there's potentially competition for Rodrygo in a Madrid shirt in Endrick. Then you have a guy like Estevao who might break through, sooner or later one non call gets two non calls and everybody in the Rodrygo camp is breaking a sweat about it. Again, nothing i worry about from our perspective, but we've been through this song and dance with Higuain so i'm not too upset about it. Rodrygo's spot at the top of the game is shaky just the way Higuain's was. There's a reason why Rodrygo dances with his words when he's in camp in Brazil, he's trying to separate himself from his 3rd fiddle status in Madrid.
Nothing to do with RM bias. Rodrygo has played and made a difference at the very top. If and when these other guys create a resume as impressive as Rodrygo's we can start debating whether he might lose his starter privilege. This Brazil generation right now is the worst in multiple decades. Trust me Rodrygo has nothing to worry about.
You cannot think that way. We we would have same issue if Tchouameni gets injured now, and we have coverage in CDM position. right now we have a key CB injured (Alaba), if we get injury to another key CB, we would be in trouble no matter what. We were spoiled and blessed to have had Nacho as 4th choice CB but that is an exception and not the norm.
Rodrygo's future will significantly depend on whether they can make a 4-3-3 work with Rodrygo. We tried at the beginning of last season before replacing the striker with Bellingham as a CAM/false 9. Maybe having a younger starting 4-3-3 (Mbappe instead of Joselu, Tchou and eventually Cama instead of Kroos/Modric) will make it work if they can keep their collective workrate up. Of course, there will also be the luck of injuries -- injuries to the midfield might break the 4-3-3's viability, but injuries to Vini or Mbappe would give Rodrygo the desired playing time.
BS, there are many defenders that can do a job, we do not need a starter but someone if god forbid our starters get injured for a long time.
If starters have injuries, replacements have to be RM starting quality too. Like Tchouameni and Nacho stepped up in that position last season. Those two started big CL games. Bench options who can start the biggest games without quality drop are hard to find indeed. I think Tcho and Alaba will have that role this season. Even if had signed Yoro, I won't be surprised if Carlo opted for Tchouameni at CB in a match vs City or Bayern due to age and experience. Yoro would have started if we had injury crisis in La Liga games.
This club has always pretended there are no good players out there then the season later they sign somebody apparently that player just descended from the sky or grew from a tree. It's press management, I don't take it too serious.
The thing is, will Alaba be "starter" quality this season? And will the subs be available, or will they be more injured than the starters? Looking at you Vallejo. I wouldn't be comfortable with that thought if I had money on the line.
I think having Alaba as a back-up option is an incredible luxury. I'm not his biggest fan as a CB and feel he has some obvious shortcomings for that position, but my gripe was mostly aimed at him being a set starter at the expense of Rudiger, whom I consider our best natural CB.
Alaba has also a amazing left leg. On paper he is our third left back but might end up beeing our first. Carvajal is constantly giving nice balls into the box, Alaba could do the same from the left. It's clear that Alaba has lost his spot in the starting as a CB.
🚨 Ancelotti: "The squad is CLOSED. We won't sign a CB because we have Alaba and some youngsters." pic.twitter.com/IyHPdtqFOJ— Madrid Xtra (@MadridXtra) August 17, 2024
2018 and 2019 were the last summers where we signed a bunch of players. Odri(30 ME), Mariano (22 ME), Reiner (30 ME), Hazard (100 ME+) and Jovic (60 ME) were the flops from those windows. That's 240ME+ worth of flops in just 12 months. Barca had flops worth a billion during Bartu era. I do think club became very cautious and takes a long time to make sure they identify top talents with the right work ethic to avoid flop risk as much as they can. Signings post Covid has been Alaba, Camavinga, Tcho, Rudiger Bellingham, Joselu, Mbappe and Endrick. Juni has been scouting Franco Mastantuono for months and we obviously got outpriced for Yoro. Now there are some reports about Vitor Reis who's been captain talent from youth categories itself and doing well for Palmeiras senior team at 18. Maybe we will close these two signings for next summer if the price is right. Real Madrid’s summer 2018. pic.twitter.com/UxcubmEDnR— Madrid Zone (@theMadridZone) August 15, 2024 Those that stay on the Left side 😂😂💔 pic.twitter.com/CzZPJz3mM4— Язид (@Maishsnz) August 16, 2024
I still don't like that we are not looking to La liga players with experience. Joselu was brilliant example. Sometimes if you need one better rotation player, you can find easily in La Liga. In this situation with CB it can be logical choice.
I don't care how the fans or the club slices it, we need another CB simple as that also to be able to rotate and rest our main CB pair. People count on Alaba and he aint even ready yet. Not to mention a back up CF, Endrick is to young,if Joselu stayed that would have been perfect.