What financial crisis?

Where did Madrid get it from? This is the question on a lot of people’s lips, including that of Michel Platini after Real Madrid today signed their fourth player of the off season, Frenchman Karim Benzema from Olympique Lyon. Despite the financial problems the world faces Madrid seem to be signing a player on a weekly basis and not for bargains either. Instead they have been keeping in what seems to be Real Madrid tradition and breaking transfer fee records, making Chelseas recent transfer history seem like spare change.

Kaka was the first to sign for the club for a world record fee of 56 million pounds, smashing Zinedine Zidanes old record to Madrid from Barcelona eight years ago by just under ten million pounds Madrid did not see this as satisfying enough so they then pulled 80 million pounds from nowhere to break their Kaka record with the signing of Christiano Ronaldo, a transfer fee that is more than double Real paid for Luis Figo to join them from Barcelona in 2000, another record at the time.

It seems the sky is the limit for the Madrid club and every website you visit features yet another player expressing their interest to join the galacticos. Last week Real signed their third player of the transfer period in Raul Albiol from Valencia and following todays signing of Benzema Real have spent in the region of 215 million euros.

Franck Ribery seems to be next on the cards for Real and while Manchester United have expressed their interest in the player with the backing of a big bank account thanks to the Ronaldo transfer, Ribery has stated that the only club he wants to play for is Madrid. If this transfer is to occur it won’t be small change either and if Madrid is able to fund this it would be remarkable yet bizarre.

Whether the new breed of galacticos can gell together to gain success for the club should be one of the questions for the upcoming season and if they fail I believe the age old claim can be justified in that money cannot buy success. Me along with every other soccer fan that cant stand Madrid or huge transfers hope they fail. One last question I would also like to ask is just what is the draw to Madrid? They failed miraculously this season embarrassing themselves along the way but I suppose there are things that will never make sense.

Justin