From Zidane to Vinícius: the reinvention of Real Madrid

If it is the end of the European football season, then Real Madrid must be appearing in the Champions League final. Los Merengues (“the meringues”, so called because of their white strip) have come to think of the continent’s premier competition as their own. The final against Borussia Dortmund on June 1st will be the club’s sixth in the past decade. They have won the other five. And what should worry the rest of Europe’s elite is that after years of monumental expenditure Madrid have revised their recruitment strategy and actually seem to be in a stronger position than for a long time.

Twenty years ago the club was defined by its galácticos. A local businessman, Florentino Pérez, won the club’s presidential election in 2000 by proposing to sell the training ground to the city and spend the proceeds on buying a jewel-encrusted superstar every summer. Fans were seduced. Portugal’s Luis Figo arrived that same year, followed by the likes of France’s Zinedine Zidane, Brazil’s Ronaldo and England’s David Beckham. The era was not trouble-free, however. Real chewed up and spat out its coaches. The squad was unbalanced. Mr Pérez wanted to mix galácticos with young prospects, but too many of the stars were forwards and too many of the youngsters defenders. When results slumped in 2006, Mr Pérez resigned.

Under his successor, Ramón Calderón, Madrid attempted to sober up. A disciplinarian Italian coach, Fabio Capello, was hired. Nobody had much fun and, worse, Barcelona, Real’s arch-rival, had a new weapon: an Argentine forward called Lionel Messi. While Madrid had been spending freely on transfers, Barcelona had pursued the opposite strategy. They had invested in their youth academy, and Mr Messi led a generation of home-grown talents to extraordinary success. By 2009 Mr Pérez was back and spending money again in the hope of keeping up. Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo arrived for a world-record fee; even more was spent on Wales’s Gareth Bale. This second set of galácticos, though regularly thwarted by Barcelona at home, won the Champions League four times between 2013 and 2018.

Thanks to its big stadium, generous share of the money from the Spanish league’s television rights and myriad sponsors, the club was used to outbidding rivals in the transfer market. But once petrostates began buying up teams such as Manchester City and Paris St Germain (PSG), Mr Pérez realised that Madrid were about to lose their edge.

So he pursued two new strategies of rather differing success. He held secret discussions in an effort to establish a European Super League, which would see elite clubs secede from the Champions League and play among themselves in a lucrative league with no relegation. Simultaneously, he switched the focus of the club’s transfer policy from superstars to the world’s best youngsters.

The club has become a significant recruiter in South America. In 2016 it signed Federico Valverde, a Uruguayan, days after he turned 18 and was therefore allowed by FIFA, the sport’s governing body, to move internationally. The same strategy brought Vinícius Júnior and Rodrygo from Brazil. Endrick, a compatriot, will arrive this summer. The only first-team players older than 25 to join in recent years did so without Madrid having to pay a transfer fee. The club’s net transfer spending over the past five years is around €200m ($217m), less than half that of PSG and below that of middling English teams like Nottingham Forest and Leeds United.

Loathed by many fans, the Super League infamously self-combusted. But Madrid’s financial management has been rather more successful; indeed it no longer needs to rewrite the rules of European football. It borrowed cheaply to fund a $1bn upgrade of its ground, and earned a third back by selling to an American company a 30% stake in a new firm that will manage the stadium. Madrid have turned a profit in each of the past ten years, an unusual feat for a leading club. So when a player of the promise of England’s Jude Bellingham became available last year, Madrid were able to sign him.

Mr Pérez also appears to have finally found a coach, Carlo Ancelotti, whom he likes. The avuncular Italian is more tactically flexible than other elite coaches, such as Pep Guardiola, of Manchester City, or Jürgen Klopp, until recently of Liverpool, and therefore more amenable to accommodating the club’s latest starlet. Few managers can cope with the pressure of coaching Los Merengues. Mr Ancelotti seems to be doing so with aplomb.

The travails of Madrid’s European rivals show the strength of their position. Barcelona have sold hundreds of millions of euros of future income just to remain in business. Manchester City have been charged by their domestic league with 115 breaches of league regulations (the club denies wrongdoing). PSG are losing their star player, Kylian Mbappé of France, probably to Real.

With a young squad, the right coach and an enviable financial position, the club once incapable of thinking ahead is now in the perfect place for long-term success.

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