The return of Florentino Perez as chairman of Real Madrid sees the policy of signing big-name stars – or galacticos – back at the Bernabeu as Los Blancos look to challenge Barcelona in the La Liga and on the European stage.
Last season was Barcelona’s most successful in a long time a Josep Guardiola – in his first year as manager – led the Catalan spearheaded by Lionel Messi to success in La Liga, the Champions League and the Spanish domestic cup – the first time a Spanish club has won those three trophies in one year.
Perez has signaled his intent to challenge Barcelona early on by breaking the world record transfer fee twice. First, the Brazilian Kaka was signed from AC Milan for £56million before Manchester United’s Cristiano Ronaldo was bought for £80m. This mirrors Real Madrid’s transfer activity when Perez first took over the club in 2000, when he signed Luis Figo for a then record fee of £37m before breaking that record the following year when he purchased Zinedine Zidane from Juventus for £46m.
As well as Kaka and Ronaldo, Real Madrid has confirmed the signing of Raul Albiol, the Valencia centre back. In his previous tenure, Perez was criticised for his buying policy as he tended to focus on attacking players too heavily and, indeed, the sale of defensive midfielder Claude Makelele to Chelsea is seen by many to be the downfall of Real Madrid after a promising start to Perez’s presidency.
The 2008-09 season saw Barcelona lauded for playing attractive, attacking football and as well as winning a historic treble, the club beat fierce rivals Real Madrid 2-6 in the El Clasico derby – this is the most goals scored by Barca in this fixture and the biggest win since the 1970s when Johan Cruyff led Barcelona to a 0-5 win.
Before the start of the season, a motion of no confident was raised club president Joan Laporta who narrowly survived the attempt to oust him. Spurred into action, he made major changes to the playing staff and brought in former player Guardiola to take charge of them.
This brought great success to the club and many eyes are looking to the Catalan club to see what their next move is. By the end of June, they had yet to make any additions to their squad although journalists had written about many players taking Barcelona flights to join the Spanish and European champions as they look to fend off a new challenge from Real Madrid.
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