Precedent was Arbeloa and Ramos

i would not compare it to Arbeloa x Ramos because Arbeloa was always looked at as an average back up, that's what we signed him for.

He was a bench player until Ramos became CB, and that was in mom's second season.

This is a case where we are going to pay a highly rated young spanish player for 40 millions, when we have the starter on the spanish NT at the club, entering his prime. And there is no option of either playing another position like Ramos.

this is like Higuain x Benzema, if both were spanish

Sure but Arbeloa did succeed Ramos on NT as starting RB as well as on club level. It ‘s not ideal but it does fit the definition of what Tito had been asking that backups challenge incumbent.

We already have 2 positions on NT were both starter and backup are from Real Madrid. Ramos and Nacho, Isco and Asensio.

the cases you mention are interesting, but none of them mirror a potential Carvajal x Odriozola.

all the other players succeed because 1) they play different positions 2) they have mostly been able to play together, at the same time, in club or country.

If you sign Odriozola for 40 millions, you have to feature him, or that's money down the drain. you play one or the other, not together, unless you do some double RB nonsense like Marcelo x Theo

Actually Nick, if you look thru our entire lineup, excluding the forwards, we have promising youth in most backup positions, Theo, Llorente, Ceballos, Asensio and Kovacic. And possibly next season Kepa and Vinicius. I exclude Vallejo as the jury is still out on him, thus far.

futbol_bill wrote:Actually Nick, if you look thru our entire lineup, excluding the forwards, we have promising youth in most backup positions, Theo, Llorente, Ceballos, Asensio and Kovacic. And possibly next season Kepa and Vinicius. I exclude Vallejo as the jury is still out on him, thus far.

Who's that?

We paid that same amount for Ceballos and Vinicius. Neither of them are starting and probably won’t for next couple of years.

you need to stop mentioning Vinicius like he is some genius please, he can't even start for his team in brazil, give me a break

Don't worry guys. Vazquez can play everywhere

futbol_bill wrote:We paid that same amount for Ceballos and Vinicius. Neither of them are starting and probably won’t for next couple of years.

we paid 15 mil for ceballos, Vinicius is still a scrub who never played for Brazil.

Odriozola is a burgeoning RB star who is already an NT player. Not to mention that you can play with 3-4 midfielders, you play 1 RB per game.

Am i the only one seeing this as a unique scenario? Carvajal is 25, and we are already signing an expensive back up behind him like something is wrong with him?

this is like having De Gea, and then signing Kepa just because

I agree with Nick.  Carvajal gets injured waaay too often not to have a great backup.  I feel the same way about Varane tbh...  we need to get a really good 3rd CB.

While we're at it, we need a good CF too. I think this needed to be mentioned again

futbol_bill wrote:Don’t understand this. Kroos speaks Spanish well

This is the extent of both Kroos' and Bale's Spanish



Both pretty bad, as they both admit in the video. Of course one player always gets mentioned over the other though when the Spanish press is feeling nasty.

Uhh, from what I am reading, Nick has the opposite view on having Odriozola here competing with Dani. I personally want us to purchase him from La Real really. Achraf just isn't cutting it at the moment and we definitely need quality all around to compete on all fronts. Apparently...

Fake news. Kroos' speaks Spanish well.

Doc wrote:Uhh, from what I am reading, Nick has the opposite view on having Odriozola here competing with Dani. I personally want us to purchase him from La Real really. Achraf just isn't cutting it at the moment and we definitely need quality all around to compete on all fronts. Apparently...

I like Odriozola, he is a talented player.

I also understand the necessity of having talented back ups per position, you want to make sure you have quality even if the starter is out.

It's even more important to have a quality young player when your starter is older so that you have a good transition, ideally.

what i dont understand is signing a young promising star for a lot of money, when your starter is 25 and not even in his prime years.

i am just asking questions because while Carvajal is mostly beloved, such signing sends the signal that his position is not safe and the club can do better. That's how i see it. And even for Odriozola, you have to convince him to accept that situation where his competition is also spanish and his senior in the NT.

If he knows any better, he does not accept signing for us. the kid is getting the chances to play for spain now because he is playing week to week at La Real and delivering, he already has a good reputation that took him to the national team, over someone like Bellerin who is better known and plays in a "big" team in england.

rincon wrote:Fake news. Kroos' speaks Spanish well.

That is your measure of well? lol

i think he sounds good, he is not a native, but it's good.

that being said, it's an interview on the club website which means, it was prepared in advance, he knew the questions and he prepared the answers. so keep that in mind

His accent is fine. Perfectly understandable and he doesn't struggle so much with words. His responses are also not so basic. He is not native but its not bad, shouldn't be much of a problem.

I’ve heard him many times. He has a german accent, but other than that his spanish is good. No comparison whatsoever to Bale. Really don’t know where Deez got that video from.

You mean the video from the UCL final? It was so obscure it was the first thing that popped up in search. There is a difference between having a rehearsed "first interview in Spanish ever," and having a true connection with the language and people outside of football.

You guys are really losing the point of the message in the details, because none of this really matters, it only matters if they can understand each other on the pitch- clearly Bale, Kroos, and Kovacic all are able to connect on the pitch, even though all have been criticized by the Spanish media for not learning Spanish properly. The Spanish media just like to criticize players on this, again- meaningless point, as they see fit.

Kroos rarely gets criticised because he actually plays very well more often than not and is useful. Not sure how the Spanish media view Kova but Bale is not only perma injured, he doesn't perform. When you can't perform on the pitch, you better have friends in high places to cover your performance.

The reason the language came up (which was by me) is that Bale's relationship (according to what I have read, obviously) with his teammates isn't all of that and apparently, it has to do with his lack of Spanish.

So he is perma injured, doesn't perform well, not liked by fans and doesn't exactly have a rosy relationship with more influential teammates. Hence why I think, and this going all the way back to what Old man Bill wrote, that is why Bale would be one who'll be sold next summer. Not Benzema.

You only need to watch Kroos interact with the Spanish clique to know that he speaks Spanish. He always jokes around with them in training and on the bench

Kovacic's spanish is better than Modric's. The only one who doesn't know the language in the squad is Bale. Even Benzema is finally fluent in it now

https://en.as.com/en/2017/10/20/football/1508480134_036162.html

Real Madrid have reached a verbal agreement to sign Brazil Under-17 ace Alan de Souza Guimarães, continuing their policy of snapping up the world's most promising youngsters.

Having started out in the São Paulo youth set-up, Alan rejected offers from several of Brazil’s biggest clubs and Inter Milan to sign for Palmeiras in 2013, where he has developed into the jewel in the crown of the Verdão's academy.

He is under contract until 2019 and has a release clause of 50m euros, but Real will seek to negotiate a lower fee as the player will be entering the final year of his deal.

Who?

Rumours of Kepa joining us heating up. Nice

I'm not on the Kepa train yet, but I can almost guarantee he comes here. Contract runs out this summer and considering how cheap we have been lately a free transfer is the best we can hope for.

@Nick, I'm a little late responding to this, but I agree with you, that the club will not or should not be pursuing Odriozola.

The background is the club started looking at him, probably as the best youth option at RB when Carvajal developed the heart problem and around the time Achraf inexperience showed. The club has been concerned that they may have another De La Red type issue on their hands. Dani recently spoke about the possibility he might have had to retire. However that problem has been resolved and although they will keep a close eye on it, it isn't like De La Red's issue and hopefully is permanently resolved.

The interest in Odriozola intensified after his first appearance on NT in replacing Carvajal. He was unexpectedly very good. Since then he has kept up that form at his own club and a second NT appearance which was even better than the first. He has now moved into the backup spot for the upcoming WC beating out Azpilicueta. (Marca recently posted the ranking by position for NT, it's not definitive but looks pretty sound IMO).

So you are absolutely correct that it doesn't make any sense to have the #1 and #2 RB in Spain to be on the same club. Both are young and need lots of minutes.

Plus I suspect the price tag would have gone up and this talent has gotten better (and known). My fear is that spot is a weakness at Barca.

Back to our club though unless Achraf improves with more minutes (and perhaps gains more experience with Morocco WC), he will be better going out on loan next season and as such we still may need to go after a backup for Carvajal (as you said last summer, although we can rely on Nacho, it's best to have someone as a true backup. So we are looking for someone better than Danilo, not as good as Odriozola and more experienced than Achraf. Let's hope he gets lots of minutes in Copa games and in WC.