City is beatable. They haven’t looked dominant for weeks. The question is, who will have the worse day…
City have hardly any injuries. Imagine going out with Semenyo against TAA, if we manage to withstand that, they can change him for Doku, if it still doesn't work they have Omar waiting in the wings. Not to mention Cherki from the middle. I hope AA has the ball to start Pitarch again. We need someone who isn't afraid of the ball and presses nonestop
Yeah, Doku/Semenyo vs TAA is going to be a mess hahaha. I hope Valverde runs more than ever before. He’ll have to help out at the back (2 vs 1) while also being present offensively. City have an incredible amount of quality, even from the players coming off the bench. Every single Real player will have to run twice as much. Unfortunately, I don’t see that fighting spirit and determination right now. That’s why I’m hoping that, given the importance of the match (Champions League knockout stage and against City), they’ll give everything and truly believe in winning. Otherwise, there’s no point in even showing up.
I bet we will go out to get a draw. AA said that the win against Celta was huge given out injury situation. City are much better than them so he will set us up to get a draw. Think we will have a bigger chance if we start a couple of the youngsters. They have so much fight and grit which are areas where we are lacking. Hope Cama is back. We are going to need miracles to not concede. Both Valverde and Cama are good in transition defending. Let's not forget we have a host of players with suspension risks like Carreras (you can bet your house he'll get a yellow), Tchouameni, Vini (why didnt we appeal the yellow?) and Huijsen. Asencio is probably starting given he is matchfit, so we can avoid Huijsen getting carded. Man this is a mess isnt it.
🚨 BREAKING: Alvaro Arbeloa is considering starting both Thiago Pitarch and Ferland Mendy against City.Camavinga and Carreras are likely to be benched for the 1st leg.— @marca pic.twitter.com/6P8IvGVDIW— Madrid Universal (@MadridUniversal) March 7, 2026 Huge balls on the guy if Pitarch starts
I would start him over Arda. It's ironic the amount of excuses we read on his thread for him yet Thiago doesn't seem to have a problem stepping right in and being impactful. Let Arda come on as a sub to give us offensive contribution (hopefully) against a tired opposition
⚠️ Players who will miss the 2nd leg at the Etihad if they get a yellow card on Wednesday:ViniciusTchouameniHuijsen Carreras (Bellingham) (Rodrygo)Savinho Nico O'Reilly pic.twitter.com/YS58uazFlu— Madrid Xtra (@MadridXtra) March 7, 2026
Just found out that our gross wage bill annually for first team players is somewhere in the region of €300m, and Barcelona’s is €200m. That’s a crazy disparity considering how much more focused they’ve been as a unit.
Barcelona has nowhere near the ego problem that we have. If we had hired Flick he would've been fired after about as many games as Xabi, if not sooner. And for all the fluff about Klopp (my personal view is that this is nonsense), there's no chance he takes the job without some assurances of both not having Perez micromanaging him while siding with the galacticos, as well as having autonomy over the comings and goings of the players this summer. And that would mean some guys with egos would need to go for the better of rebuilding the team; having an insane collection of talent is just, quite frankly, worthless if the pieces don't fit together. Most of us would probably think we have more talent in our team than Barcelona does - we also might generally be biased in our assessment - but it's night and day watching these two teams the last two years which one is actually superior where it matters, on the field.
Thats wild, and doesnt make sense given we have been losing top earners yearly and replacing them with Huijsens and Tchouameni's. Alaba and possibly Rudiger might depart this summer, maybe even Carvajal and Mendy, and most likely will be replaced with players with much cheaper wages.
Real Madrid extends its partnership with Emirates until 2031 The new agreement will bring the club an income of 74 million euros per year. The agreement, which was due to expire soon, has been extended for five additional seasons after increasing its value to approximately €74 million annually. The new contract includes assets such as the basketball team's kit, adding to the brand's presence on the front of the shirts of the men's and women's first teams. https://www.marca.com/sport-busines...real-madrid-amplia-alianza-emirates-2031.html Real Madrid triples losses in basketball with 17.5 million in the first half of 25-26 Real Madrid has tripled its losses in the basketball section in the first half of the season. Its commitment to the sport has resulted in the largest investment in its roster in history, amidst ongoing debate about whether it will join the European leagues of the NBA and FIBA or renew its EuroLeague participation. Spending on player salaries has risen 49% year-on-year in the first half of 2025-2026, reaching €25.3 million, according to financial statements analyzed by Intelligence 2P , the market intelligence and strategy unit of 2Playbook. https://www.2playbook.com/clubes/re...lones-en-primer-semestre-25-26_21639_102.html
If you're dropping Trent and Carvajal is available and you end up putting somebody that has played in that position for a few weeks ahead of him, you're setting yourself up to have a very very bad time as a coach.
🚨 Karim Benzema on what is missing at Real Madrid:"What they're missing is just a connection. Between Mbappé, Vinicius, Bellingham and Rodrygo.""Each player has to know what they have to do on the pitch. Bellingham needs to understand that he's the playmaker, not the… pic.twitter.com/GXX9UrcfCx— Madrid Universal (@MadridUniversal) March 8, 2026
Nobody in their right mind is shifting Valverde back with his output since AA took over. That's 101 on how to lose a dressing room
Great theory but i've never seen it work in practice. If you have 5 cooks in the kitchen, you can't have one of them peeling potatoes and the other doing the dishes. You need to hire assistants and kitchen staff.
He's probably drawing from his own experience. He had to sacrifice when the team was Ronaldo's and expects the same from the current squad to do.
Makes Lewandowskis recent interview even more valuable, where he said that young players used to collect the balls and nets, now they talk back and have an attitude. So he had to step back and reconsider everything. The game has changed, so everybody has to adapt to it.
At this point, he’s not coaching next season anyway and you do what is best for the team, not the player. That’s the whole point.
Apart from Alaba, we’ve really high earners like Jude and Trent who have made minimal impact this season due to their frequent injuries as well as other inflated salaries from previous extensions. Despite all these wages, the squad feels bland and totally lacking leadership and accountability from veterans. Random thought, but if there’s one thing I’d love to know this season, is how it would have all gone if Modric was allowed to stay (he’s said he offered to lower his salary just to stay), and who’s dumb idea it was to remove him without a replacement (which is a separate point really but still). He was the only true leader we had left.