They also don't ask their manager to do anything other than coach and do it with what he is given. What he is given is also 2 or 3 Balon d'Or candidates on a regular basis and generally first dibs on the very best players in the world because they have pulling power higher than anybody else. With that job description and resources given, they are within their rights to sack when the targets are not delivered. You can't replicate these conditions in other places though and therefore the same approach would not be as fair.
What’s Real Madrid’s secret?
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Not true. They could have been if they employed the same Galacticos strategy. Kids grow up idolizing the best talents. You get those best talents, and the kids want to follow in their footsteps. It will keep happening if you don't break that cycle. Barca was getting that pull, but their management has been awful. Still many kids want to follow in the footsteps of Ronaldinho, and Messi.
A Bale that got fecking Wales to the Semis ...
Yeah, it's just a team that's stacked with all time greats in every position other than right back.
How come we weren’t enough of a pull for Cristiano then? It’s also well documented that we missed out on Ronaldinho when Barcelona showed interest. You don’t think we’d have been interested in Zidane or R9 or Neymar. City and Liverpool have been successful yet Mbappe is only going one place. The English game has never been the place to go for the very elite and the reasons behind that are cultural in my opinion. The very top talent from South America or the Mediterranean countries which is where most of the very top talents come from have always seen Italy and Spain as the place to go and Real Madrid sit at the top of those attractions.
Fergie notoriously missed out on Zidane because he thought he wouldn't fit his system or the Premier League.
Ronaldinho was the fault of Peter Kenyon and Barca came in after negotiations with Ronaldinho's agent stalled.
The kind of money R9 was going for, was just not in the realm of possibility for any English club at the time.
Neymar was a deal that was embroiled in corruption.
There are loads and loads of player who rejected Madrid/Barca in favor of English clubs.
Who? In fact, name one player who arrived to the PL with the reputation of being a potentially best in the world calibre? The closest I can think of is maybe Haaland and even that’s arguable and he’s already touted that he’ll eventually end up there.
Oh and according to David Gill’s interview with Rio earlier this year, everything was set up for Ronaldinho until Barcelona came along when in his words “we had no chance”
There's only one explanation.
good point, also Haaland deal and his contract were arguably as embroiled in corruption as Neymar’s.
Re: Ronaldinho, Fergie explicitly said that Peter Kenyon trying to lowball Ronaldinho's agent was what screwed it up for us.
Regarding top players who sign for English teams? Do you discount the ones who flopped but everyone wanted them?
Pogba rejected Real Madrid to rejoin Man Utd for his second stint.
As you say, Erling Haaland
Eden Hazard
Thierry Henry rejected Real Madrid when he joined Arsenal
Sancho rejected Real Madrid to join Man Utd
Nemanja Matic
Michael Ballack
Andriy Shevchenko
Memphis Depay
Hell, in 07/08 we plucked Anderson and Nani who were the two hottest prospects in Europe at the time despite interest from loads of big clubs.
Juan Sebastien Veron
We even beat Barcelona to signing Kleberson
Just off the top of my head, theres loads more
I used to agree with what you are saying however City do seem to keep their best players. Aguero through his peak, Silva, Dias, KDB. Even Rodri, probably the best CDM in the world, (born in Madrid) yet still plays for City.
Where the feck is/was Madrid or Barca's interest?
Historically if Madrid or Barca wanted the best players from the PL, they got them. City manage to fend them off. Some may say its because City players have multiple salaries or maybe that the likes of KDB and Silva dreamed of carrying on Paul Dickovs legacy in the famous blue shirt.
Didn't that lead to us buying Ronaldo instead? As awesome as ronaldinho would've been, I can't see him having more of an impact than Cristiano.
Yep, worked out well for all parties to be honest.
Ronaldinho playing as a traditional left winger in a 4-4-2 at his peak would have been a complete misuse of his talents.
Even when it was the case, it seemed to be exclusively Hispanic/Latino players too.
Coutinho, Suarez, Ronaldo etc.
There were some cases where it was not, but that due to extenuating circumstances. Ie Beckham falling out with Fergie, Van Nistelrooy fighting Ronaldo, everyone wanting Bale but David Levy being David Levy.
None of (the non-british) greatest players in history ever played against Stoke on a rainy night, C. Ronaldo being the outlier. Even he jumped ship as soon as Real Madrid came calling and reached his peak there. You can make a case for Zidane, but the rest just doesn't fill the bill.
R9 was never going to play in England when the Serie A was the pinnacle of football at the time and offered a much enjoyable life than England. Ronaldinho dropped everything as soon as he heard Barca was interested.
Here's what R10 said:
“Yes, I could have played for another club, but I went to Barcelona because of my friendship with Sandro Rosell. I could have played for Manchester United. My brother was already studying what I would do after PSG. I was a World Cup winner then, and that opened a lot of doors. But when Sandro was elected, I had the chance to see the club and the city, and the choice became easy.”
You can try to find excuses in dilly-dallying and lack of decisiveness at a club level, but the best players, who overwhelmingly come from "sunny" countries, never saw England as an attractive destination when given the choice. Even today, despite the PL being the most competitive and financially rewarding league in the world.
Italy and especially Spain have a pull England never had and still doesn't. Aside from money, cultural affinities, lifestyle and way of playing football are arguments to which England hasn't found any meaningful counter yet.
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Completely disagree regarding the latter.
There are more and more Spanish/Brazilian/South Americans coming over to PL as a percentage and staying here. Also, when was the last time a player willfully chose Serie A over the PL??? Premier League has been plucking the best Serie A talents for years now. Even AC Milan can't hold on to their best players from upper mid table English teams.
Yes, R9 was never going to PL in 1997 because Inter Milan paid a Neymar to PSG esque fee for him back in 1997 that nobody could remotely match.
They are ruthless and put winning above anything else.
According to our resident Barce fans it is all down to cheating.
Other than that they attract a lot of the best players and managers, are ruthless when it matters with players and managers, they also appear to have the aura of the dominant united sides who beat teams before they turned up too, especially in Europe.
They appear to have the perfect mix of their history, a location the worlds best want to live in, endless money glitch and then a league that is friendly to their European adventures in terms of number of matches + level of a lot of them matches.
Other than that they attract a lot of the best players and managers, are ruthless when it matters with players and managers, they also appear to have the aura of the dominant united sides who beat teams before they turned up too, especially in Europe.
They appear to have the perfect mix of their history, a location the worlds best want to live in, endless money glitch and then a league that is friendly to their European adventures in terms of number of matches + level of a lot of them matches.
None of those players that you mentioned has made Florentino Perez loose his sleep.
Yes, they understand that the assets of the club are the players, not the manager. Nobody will pay for a ticket to watch the manager, we watch the players. Nobody at Real cares about having a manager for "a very long time".
Sack them early, sack them often. Del Bosque won them two La Ligas and two CL titles in 4 years, and he was sacked. On the other hand, half of our fans want the owners to keep the guy who finished 8th because next year he may finish 12th, and then he will magically transform into Sir Alex Ferguson who also happened to finish 12th half a century ago. Do you want to miss the New SAF?
Man Utd has not been trying to build a team, they have been trying to find the New Messiah.
Different focus, different expectations, different culture. That's why they win so much.
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There always were very good south-american and african players who played in England. That more go there nowadays is completely understandable and nothing new under the sun. My point is that exceptional players never set a foot in an English club, bar CR7... before he became CR7. I'm talking about the cream of the crop, the ones who we see as football gods.
England just never could attract this kind of players, no matter how much hair you want to split. Spain and Italy did. The latter much less so in the past two decades, but should it get back to what it was, and we'll see how many of the footballers you mentioned will still choose to play in England. Not saying it's going to happen anytime soon, but between living in Italy or England the choice is very easily made.
Mate, supposing that the clubs are more or less at the same sporting level and there's no huge discrepancy in the financial rewards, you are never going to convince a player like R9 to live in Manchester or Liverpool when the alternative is Milan, Madrid or Barcelona. That's not going to happen.
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My theories.
- Have a shit tonne of history and prestige
- Located in a comfortable country weather wise
- Great ownership and people in power. No leeches.
- Big budgets
- Make smart signings
- Have high standards and from top to bottom are incessantly focused on winning
- Minimal sentimentality and aren’t afraid to feck managers and players off if they don’t achieve the very best.
Please correct me if any of the above are wrong Real fans.
- Have a shit tonne of history and prestige
- Located in a comfortable country weather wise
- Great ownership and people in power. No leeches.
- Big budgets
- Make smart signings
- Have high standards and from top to bottom are incessantly focused on winning
- Minimal sentimentality and aren’t afraid to feck managers and players off if they don’t achieve the very best.
Please correct me if any of the above are wrong Real fans.
I wish this was expanded on. I presume the low ball Kenyon offer was after this knowing we didn't have a chance anyway. I also assume, with how cross Fergie was with Kenyon, he was unaware of the hints we got that with Barca interested he wan't coming.
Elaborate.
Kenyon that year was pretty much ear marked to leave for Chelsea (he left 8 days after the window closed). It was in his interest to ensure United didn't improve further.
Bale was very much a case of he only wanted Madrid actually
Haaland? De Bruyne? Pogba?
The whole "the best don't come to England" was true back in the day, when Serie A and La Liga were stronger and richer, quite simply bigger than the PL. Nowadays it isn't true anymore. Madrid and Barcelona get players over english sides because of their recent history and success and because we've generally paid more. And the last part is changing too - Bellingham rejected a bigger contract at City to sign for Madrid. But that's because Madrid's early 00s run under Flo, the galacticos, turned us into the biggest club in the world, because of Figo, Zidane, Ronaldo and Beckham. And then when Flo came back he took Cristiano from United by doubling his wages. That helped keep up the "biggest club in the world image". And then we started collecting CL like candies
The Kenyon move and no gardening leave screwed us. I lost track of how many players we were allegedly scouting who suddenly ended up at Chelsea
Yep. And it's not just the south American players but players from the Balkans and Central Europe as well.
For Balkan players, Italy has always been preferable destination. Spain second, Germany third. England was only the option when there were just no decent opportunities in the other three big leagues, and if the English teams were the only ones willing to pay money.
The mentality is now slowly shifting as Premier League became more prestigious and global, but even today if a big Italian or Spanish team comes calling, a player from the Balkans and Central Europe would go there instead of England, if given a chance.
Bayern also has a massive pull both in Latin America and in Eastern Europe, as there is a lot of fascination with Germany in both of these parts of the world, and Bayern is seen as an epitome of a well-run, successful and organized club, with Bavaria region seen as the embodiment of all the positive stereotypes about Germany that those people have.
In my opinion when it comes to pull, I would put clubs in the following tiers:
Tier 1: Real Madrid, Barcelona
Tier 2: Juventus, Bayern
Tier 3: United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool, Inter, Milan, City, PSG.
Tier 4: Atletico Madrid, Roma, Tottenham, Dortmund, Napoli.
Tier 5: Aston Villa, Newcastle, West Ham, Sevilla, Valencia, Fiorentina, Lazio, Benfica, Porto, Ajax, Marseille, other top German clubs etc.
What I mean by pull is that everything else being the same (same salary, guaranteed position in the team/similar opportunities for playing time), on average players have club preferences along those lines. Clubs from a lower tier most likely have to either pay more or offer more opportunities to play to a player to beat a club from an upper tier to sign him, if both clubs are interested, or have to hope that the clubs from upper tier don't want the same player.
This tier list especially applies to foreign players who have no connection with any of these countries.
Also the table reflects the recent situation with Premier League rising and Serie A and La Liga falling. During Serie A's hayday, all of the three biggest Italian clubs would be in tier 1 and clubs like Parma and Fiorentina would be tier 2, above English clubs. In the 00s Inter and Milan were still tier 2. Even in prime Fergie years United was still just tier 2, bellow Barcelona and Real Madrid. For some time Valencia had bigger pull than Wenger's Arsenal.
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Can't be luck when they keep doing it.
For me, here are some of the ingredients to their "secret":
- Sky high and unwavering standards
- Football first. Never allowing commercial interests to supercede football. They did it with Beckham / Makelele and never did it again.
- Adaptability - they reacted to City / PSG by moving away from the Galactico model and going younger. They learned from Hazard. We adapted by squandering over a billion quid.
- The draw of the badge, Location and history making it much easier for them to sign players.
- Succession planning and never resting on their laurels
- Importantly, their ownership model which prevents them from being taken over by money grabbing leech bastards like the Glazers.
- The Spanish banks and government who have been more than happy to help them out historically with zero interest loans or paying massively inflated price for their training ground to net out their debt.
All in all, they are an extremely well run football club.
Pogba? Seriously?Bale was very much a case of he only wanted Madrid actually
Haaland? De Bruyne? Pogba?
The whole "the best don't come to England" was true back in the day, when Serie A and La Liga were stronger and richer, quite simply bigger than the PL. Nowadays it isn't true anymore. Madrid and Barcelona get players over english sides because of their recent history and success and because we've generally paid more. And the last part is changing too - Bellingham rejected a bigger contract at City to sign for Madrid. But that's because Madrid's early 00s run under Flo, the galacticos, turned us into the biggest club in the world, because of Figo, Zidane, Ronaldo and Beckham. And then when Flo came back he took Cristiano from United by doubling his wages. That helped keep up the "biggest club in the world image". And then we started collecting CL like candies
The players you mentioned are light-years away from football icons like Zidane, R9, Ronaldinho, Zico, Pelé, Messi, C.Ronaldo, or Maradona.
Cruijff, Maradona, Romario played at Barca way before it became the juggernaut it now is. Madrid despite some dry spells always was a European monster. Of course money plays its part, but the prestige of playing for Madrid has always been there. No one can discount that. Perez is one of the greatest club presidents football has ever seen, but it's not like Madrid was a nothing club before him.
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I remember he did have a gardening leave of a few months but that didn't prevent him from basically disclosing all our insider info to Chelsea. Robben, Essien, Mikel, Duff are a few players I can think right off the bat.
With Cristiano it was just his dream. However the problem with buying the best players in the world was that we weren't willing to break our wage structure and break transfer fee records. We missed out on Ronaldinho because Gill effed around too much over a few million and R9 because of our wage struture. We never spent like richist club in the world which we were at the time.
Man City haven’t really failed to get a top player that they wanted (probably illegally and off books) but money means more than Bayern and Juve. It’s been a while now since Juve bought a player in the quality that City shop in.
In 2009 we had just won the CL and reached another final. We routinely singed the best players from other English clubs - Carrick, Rooney, Berbatov, Ferdinand etc, often being able to outspend rivals (Chelsea aside). Combined with good scoutng (Nani, Anderson, Hargreaves, Tevez), we had a great base to become what Real became around 2015. Remember in 2009 they had failed to make the CL knockouts for about 5 seasons in a row. They had prestige, and money, but not success. We had prestige and success, but unfortunately no money because of the Glazers. And when they finally allowed big spending under Van Gaal, we had no proper scouting system in place any more it seems after SAF left and then spent the next 10 years wasting money on shite.
I mean it's just hypotheticals and of course Real are more prestigious, but there was a spell in the 2000s when we were a very attractive proposition. We should've solidified a dynasty then. Give that £70m a year or whatever it was we were spending on debt interest payments for transfers between 2009 and 2013, and we would've been way more healthier when SAF left.
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Yes, seriously. He went for a world record fee, every big club in Europe had spent the previous two years courting him. Both of Barcelona's presidential candidates made him the centerpiece of their campaign - "vote for me and I'll sign Pogba". Madrid was the only club not truly interested and it was only because of the bad blood between Florentino and Raiola. Zidane was desperate to sign him though
Not sure why you're bringing up Pelé - never played in Europe, Zico - moved to a small italian club at the end of his career, Messi - signed as a 13 year old, went to Barcelona because his dad had contacts in Barcelona, and Maradona - twice a world record fee at a time when english clubs didn't sign non-british players.
R9, Zidane, Dinho are from an era where Serie A and La Liga were bigger, richer, better than the PL. Of course stars would chose those clubs in those days - more money and more prestigious league
Cristiano, for all the childhood dreams and shit, moved to Madrid because we doubled his United salary. Literally doubled. Had Fergie matched our offer maybe he would stayed in Manchester, but English clubs weren't willing to pay as much the Spanish giants back then. Really, this only changed in the last decade or so, mostly pushed by City and PSG. You can see the same happening with Bayern as well
Two of those moved for world record transfer fees, Cruijff also got a world record salary on top. Also, again, british teams weren't signing "foreigners" back then, were they?
As for Romario, 1993 - picking between Barcelona and an english side was a bit like picking between, say, Liverpool and Roma right now
The prestige was always there sure, thanks to the money spent by Bernabeu in the 50s and 60s, and then rekindled by all the money spent by Flo in the 00s. Real Madrid didn't go 20 years signing Cruyff, Beckenbauer, Zico, Platini, Maradona, Van Basten, Ronaldo, etc... it was Perez. And that politic of investing in huge names turned the club into the financiap juggernaut that years later could go to Cristiano Ronaldo, ask him how much he was making at Manchester United, and offer to double that. The rest was Cristiano. In the same way Figo, Zidane, Ronnie and Beckham turned the "Real Madrid biggest club in the world" from spanish delusion into reality, Cristiano(and Messi in Barcelona) raised an entire generation on the myth if Madrid(and Barcelona). Couple that with the willingness to pay mega stars like mega stars, and you have Madrid's success in the market. Mind you, Madrid have been chasing Mbappé since 2017, and all along we've known that Mbappé's dream was playing for Real Madrid, and he still isn't a Madrid player in 2024...
Using a poker analogy, they tend to win most coin flips.
Don't get me wrong, they have bottle and can ride out bad situations and come back to win, but damn, opposition tend to crap the bed when they get great chances vrs them.
Don't get me wrong, they have bottle and can ride out bad situations and come back to win, but damn, opposition tend to crap the bed when they get great chances vrs them.
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Absolutely ridiculous when you think about it.
Madrid went 30 seasons without winning the European cup. The change of format to CL and increased finances in football has helped them massively.
Now have the highest of standards. But all empires eventually fall.....
Now have the highest of standards. But all empires eventually fall.....
Florentino Perez is 77 so it might not be too long