Real Madrid and Vini Jr Ballon d’Or furore is ‘batsh*t mental’

Sympathy for Real Madrid is in short supply as their cry-arsing has won them no fans. We also have more on Man Utd.

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Not ten times, Vini…

You just have to score more than 20 league goals in a season where the standard of opposition is pretty dump. Shouldn’t be too hard but still something you haven’t done. Still though, at least your highlights on YouTube look decent.

Sam Steer

Real Madrid furore is batsh*t mental

Could we take a second to acknowledge how unhinged the reaction by Vinicius Jr, Real Madrid, and his sycophants were to the Ballon D’or awards?

The history of the Ballon D’or is littered with examples of worthy winners getting snubbed. Yet never before in the history of football has one institution melted down quite as entertainingly/embarrassingly as Real Madrid (and, to be fair, most of Brazil).

All the social media posts of support for Vinicius Jr have been so over the top that it takes a moment to remember that he got pipped for an award, as opposed to have died. Not a magnanimous word to be found for his fellow professional, a player – outside the Real Madrid circlejerk – many would argue is a worthy winner. And of course, instead of recognizing the impact of having three Real Madrid players in the running all likely to split voting, these lot have chosen to play victim.

Real Madrid publicly complaining about a conspiracy against them is so batsh*t mental it feels almost other worldly when you consider Karim fking Benzema won it less than 2 years ago.

Anon

MORE ON THE BALLON D’OR FROM F365:

👉 Who will win the 2025 Ballon d’Or? Real Madrid trio in top five favourites despite boycott

👉 Real Madrid legend blasts boring Ballon d’Or winner Rodri, who is only ‘a good player’

👉 Man City star Rodri wins the Ballon d’Or as Real Madrid boycotters finish 2nd, 3rd and 4th

…Even though Real Madrid never fail to live up to their self entitled reputation of feeling insulted when anyone else gets more attention than they do, I’ve got to say that these last couple of days have really taken the biscuit.

In one corner we have Rodri, defensive and crucial goalscoring beast, best player (not most eye catching) as Spain won Euro 2024, best player for City as we won the Premier League, Super Cup, and World Club Cup, never losing a game and the team struggling and losing whenever he’s not there.

In the other we have Vinicius Jnr, goal machine and flair merchant but with lots of end product too. Top scorer for Real as they won the Champions League and La Liga.

Now even as a City fan, it would seem that Rodri had a slightly more momentous year than Vinicius. However, I can completely see why some people would prefer him and that’s absolutely fine. I don’t care at all who actually won, they’re both amazing.

Real Madrid not showing up to the ceremony and then saying it’s a conspiracy and disrespectful is just unbelievable. Well actually not because they have so much form for this kind of thing.

But then today’s reports about the Brazilian media saying it’s racist just doesn’t help anyone. Yes, he has received awful abuse from fans in Spain and elsewhere, we can all agree that’s horrific, but it’s also an obvious thing. Who are they suggesting is racist in this case? France football magazine? Everyone who voted for it? Notice that none of these commentators would actually dare to accuse anyone involved because it’s slanderous and without any form of basis. Never mind the fact that loads of Brazilian players won it before the Messi and Ronaldo years which no one could really argue with.

The collective bed wetting by them all just because he hasn’t won is so shockingly childish that I hope he doesn’t win it next year out of sympathy. And no it’s not because I’m racist, it’s because I can’t stand this pathetic show of bad sportsmanship.

Andy, Cheshire

English jobs for English managers?

Since Thomas Tuchel’s announcement as England Manager went over so well with Gary Neville and the rest of the former Manchester United podcast crew, and they have spent the last two weeks spouting nonsense about English coaches needing to get the top jobs… Are we all expecting them to be firmly backing Lee Carsley to replace Ten Hag? Maybe Kieran McKenna, or how about Sean Dyche? Wayne Rooney knows the club after all, get him in…

Surely they wouldn’t conveniently forget all that and just discuss which foreign coach they should be targeting? Would they?

Jon, LFC fan

What does Ruben Amorim’s Man Utd look like?

With the news that Ruben Amorim will be Manchester United’s new manager, I thought I’d explore how his tactical setup could suit the current squad. While I admired Ten Hag, his reluctance to adapt his ‘plan’ became frustrating and often left our matches feeling like coin tosses. Amorim’s 3-4-3, however, has the potential to better utilize our players’ strengths.

In defence, a three-man line of Martínez or Lindelof, Maguire or Yoro, and De Ligt or Evans would provide a more structured shape. All three are capable of picking a pass and having an additional center-back could help cover defensive weaknesses and offer an extra outlet when under pressure.

Wing-backs like Shaw (fitness permitting), Dalot, Mazraoui, and Malacia (if fit) would push forward to add width and defensive support without being solely reliant on their defensive abilities. Additionally, the long-awaited “Anthony wing-back experiment” could finally take place.

In midfield, Ugarte could serve as the combative ball-winner alongside Mainoo or Eriksen in a double pivot. This pairing would bring defensive stability and ball-playing ability, helping control the game’s tempo and addressing the midfield gaps that often plagued Ten Hag’s formations.

In attack, Gyökeres has shown he’s more than just a traditional number 9 at Sporting, often dropping deep to link play with the two inside forwards. This could be a role suited to Zirkzee, while Højlund’s pace and strength could provide a more direct threat down the middle, creating space for the supporting forwards.

For the two inside forward roles, Rashford, Amad, Garnacho, and Bruno could compete. Bruno and Amad’s passing and movement into the box make them ideal for the inside-right forward spot, where both have shown a knack for finishing (Bruno, notably, for Portugal).

Meanwhile, Rashford and Garnacho can operate away from the touchline, using the wing-backs to maintain width and occupy the opposing full-backs. This positioning could create more space between the full-backs and center-backs for them to exploit.

Amorim’s 3-4-3 offers the flexibility and structure we’ve been lacking, and we have the players to give it a go.

Of course, this all hinges on the players putting in the work and following his instructions—so, good luck to him!

Rob Hopkins

Why so much Man Utd bile?

Another day, another hatchet piece. The article about United’s sacking of ETH reeks of staggering bombast. You can almost feel the power dripping off the keyboard.

Here’s an alternative view: Ineos appoint a high powered management team but they barely get into place by the time the season ends, and haven’t had time to work with ETH. An argument is made that the problems for ETH have in great part been because of the lack of support he received in the club. Not financial, but just the management team behind him. So they choose between the option of sacking him without testing that hypothesis or giving him some more time. Ten Hag comes across as a decent and articulate man and he did show in the FA Cup final that he can get the team to play at a very high level. So they decide to stick, but push him to refresh his coaching staff.

In the summer having stuck with him they back him in the transfer market but this time, care is taken to a) not overpay for players and b) not go merely by ETH’s view or some random evaluation. Most of the players brought in have the experts nodding – there is clearly some plan. To start with, all the players brought in have their best years ahead of them.

The ETH experiment doesn’t work out. But out in the real world you’re usually encouraged to make decisions knowing some of them will be wrong. As long as you learn and fix them.

Now, this version may be off the mark, but given the paucity of any data, so might Dave’s assertions. And it’s good to have an opinion but to express it as fact without exploring any alternative hypotheses in the absence of data isn’t a sign of good journalism. It’s not a sign of good anything really. I mean how can you be sure that ‘no thought went into how other coaches might use these players’ unless you were there in the room for every transfer discussion?

Also, from the announcement of ETH’s sacking earlier today to Amorim apparently being all set to join has taken less than 12 hours (he must not have read this article). By any football club’s standards, that’s good going. It’s almost as though the Ineos team had a plan in place.

Anyhow, I’m sure you’ll find another villain to write about soon at United. Ratcliffe is a billionaire – ergo he must be a clueless monster. Plus ca change.

Ved Sen (Farewell ETH – it could have been great!)

Ruud awakening

I’ve seen a lot of sentiment in the mailbox of late along the lines of “if Ruud van Nistelrooy can’t get the team scoring then no one can”.

This strikes me as odd for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it’s not really the strikers who are missing chances for Manchester United, so of the idea is that a former brilliant striker should be getting the strikers scoring it seems flawed given that strikers aren’t really the issue.

But mostly it’s the idea that because he was a brilliant goal scorer for Manchester United that automatically means he’ll be good at getting other players to score which seems wrong to me. I assume that by the time a player has made it to the Manchester United first team, they have the physical attributes and ball striking technique required to score goals in the Premier League.

What’s left is mental – a combination of knowing where to be on the pitch, how to anticipate where to be ahead of a defender and having the composure to take the chance when it comes along. Having been good at football does not seem like the main requirement for that job.

For all I know Manchester United have a plethora of finishing coaches, tacticians and sports psychologists working with the players already but the idea that hiring a former striker as assistant manager = more goals is a bit simplistic.

Jeremy (of course, making him manager just might since he has more control over the whole team approach) Aves