By Noel S. Villaflor
IN 2009, Real Madrid went on a spending spree that was as record breaking as it was outrageous.
Los Blancos spent $370 million in all to land Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka, Karim Benzema and Xavi Alonso. For Ronaldo, Madrid splurged a whopping $131 million, and for Kaka, $92 million.
In the 2010 transfer season, it spent a $120 million--roughly a third of the amount it splurged in 2009--on Angel di Maria, Mesut Ozil and Sami Khedira.
Madrid’s 2010 spending was only second to Manchester City’s mind-boggling $214 million, but an insane amount nevertheless, especially in a financially-stricken country where 21 percent of Spaniards are unemployed.
In the last decade alone, the Galacticos spent over $1.5 billion on players regarded as among best on the planet, thanks to the spending policy of Florentino Perez, the club president who briefly relinquished his post in the middle of the last decade then regained it.
Before the madness of 2009, the biggest amounts Madrid spent were in the 2001 season ($180 million, of which $89 million was for Figo) and in the following year, $106 million for its lone acquisition Zinadine Zidane, a record fee at that time. The next year, it bought the Brazilian Ronaldo for $66 million, then David Beckham for $52 million in 2004. In the next four years, it spent half a billion dollars--the GDP of a small country--on a number of players.
In business terms, the world’s richest club made wise investments at that time and were rewarded handsomely on local soil, winning the Spanish La Liga in 2001, 2003, 2007, 2008.
In Europe, however, the club underachieved on a grand scale. The last time it won the Champions League was in 2002 with unforgettable goals from Raul and Zidane in the final.
There has been a sense of desperation from the Galacticos camp that the club needed to live up to its billing as the most successful club in football.
The 2009 splurge and entry of wonder boy Jose Mourinho in May 2010 was supposed to restore Real Madrid’s past glories, the Portuguese manager having just won for Inter Milan the 2010 Champions League trophy against all odds.
With starlet Ronaldo and a high-profile supporting cast at his disposal, Mourinho was tasked to end rival FC Barcelona’s dominant run in Europe and Spain.
That their beloved Real Madrid is now only second best to the overachieving Catalan side is unacceptable to Los Blancos fans, who were quick to consecrate Mourinho, the self-proclaimed “Special One,” as Real’s savior.
But that was not to be, after its humiliation in the Champions League El Clasico semi-finals, losing 3-1 on aggregate to a much superior Blaugrana side, who now advance to its third final in five years.
The manner in which Barcelona restricted Real Madrid in a straitjacket over the last two legs was impressive. Having possession 70 percent of the time, Madrid was forced to play negative football.
In yesterday’s 1-1 second leg draw, where the red-carded Mourinho was a no-show, Real committed 31 fouls to Barca’s 10, and five yellow cards to one. But even more damning was that Los Blancos, the team that was giving chase, only managed three attempts on goal to Barca’s 10.
The statistics tell the story: Barcelona was the better—way better—team.
The least the Madrid players could have done was to be gracious about the loss. But no: the Portuguese prima donna cried conspiracy among the referees, echoing countryman Master Mourinho’s accusations.
“Next year they should just give the cup directly to Barcelona,” Ronaldo wailed in his cry-baby best.
But who are Mourinho, Ronaldo and the rest of Real Madrid fooling? The club tried to buy its success with its jaw-dropping spending sprees over the last two years, and now that it’s payback time, these spoiled brats are not men enough to accept their big, fat failure.
Then again, to do so would be to admit that Real Madrid wasted half a billion dollars on a team that’s so full of talk but so wanting in substance.
Published in the Sun.Star Cebu newspaper on May 05, 2011.
