Real Madrid hit somewhat of a slump in the past few seasons, only winning La Liga which by their own high standards is very poor. A lot of this failure has been blamed on the club president’s own theory – the ‘Galacticos’ regime, in which they only signed the super stars of world football.
The regime saw the likes of Ronaldo, Zidane, Owen, Beckham, Figo, all playing for the Madrid team. Though this was quite fruitful, they never really gained the success that the club was aiming for – and eventually weaknesses were exploited in the team. The club had no real ‘backbone’, with far too many big name players and not enough hard-working and committed team players.
Defensively the club were quite poor due to the unbalance in the squad – too much of an emphasis on attacking talents, and not enough on defensive graft. The team were leaking goals, and couldn’t always score enough to overcome the deficit.
It has recently been revealed by the club’s technical secretary, Miguel Angel Portugal, that the club could have signed the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, and Giovani Dos Santos. The players’ huge potential talent were spotted by Madrid when the players were just 14 years old, but the club didn’t make the steps necessary to sign the talented youngsters.
Because of the ‘Galacticos’ regime, the club and president Florentino Perez never actually made the finances available to purchase the players – instead he was focused on purchasing the biggest names in World football.
When the player Claude Makelele was sold to Chelsea, the mistakes in the ‘Galacticos’ regime were already evident. Now the club was selling on a player which was seen to hold the team together, providing the necessary defensive cover and back up to the midfield. The president didn’t recognise his talents, or the needs of the team, and so a huge hole was left in the Madrid team.
Madrid have recently changed their stance now, and the new coach Bernd Schuster has made some quality investments at the club; signing the likes of young stars Roysten Drenthe, Christoph Metzelder, Sergio Ramos, Arjen Robben, Wesley Sneijder, Javier Saviola and Gonzalo Higuain. However the club has hade to pay the price in terms of not bringing in these players from a younger age, spending nearly £50 million in total.
The club does now appear to be set up well for the next few years, with a large array of young talented footballers set to mould the team for several more seasons – and to clear out the ‘Galacticos’ regime along with all of the old deadwood which used to remain at Madrid. The likes of Beckham, Carlos, Figo, Ronaldo, Owen have all moved on, and now have Real Madrid.
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