Real Madrid is less a sporting club than an HBO period drama, played out by characters who wish they could get on with kicking a ball instead of being political pawns.
(Recorded before a live studio audience.)
Starring: President Florentino Perez, the Spanish construction mogul who finds unforeseen money for the club, but will not wait to see the results of his spending flourish before getting distracted with new toys. Given his behaviour he should be wearing a cowboy hat.
Cristiano Ronaldo features as the indulged golden child, the heart-throb face of the Real Madrid business and equal greatest football player of modern times, who cost the club €94 million to buy.
Goalkeeper Iker Casillas is the crotchety grandfather of the family who sits in the corner, needs to be tiptoed around, and won’t just die already.
This week’s guest star is second-year manager Carlo Ancelotti.
The background to this story is the resonance of old power. In the 1950s Real Madrid, the focal point of Spain’s capital city in a country at that time run by a fascist dictatorship (some people hint these facts are connected), were able to poach an Argentine player named Alfredo di Stefano and with him inconceivably won the first five Champions Leagues.
In the six decades since Real have desperately reassured themselves that those distant matches in the 1950s automatically make them the greatest club forevermore. The need to maintain this self-image has seen all sorts of strange behaviours.
Real Madrid is a swirling phalanx of disparate characters always headed in separate directions. There are the privileged Spanish players completely indulged well into a doddering old age, laughing at the very idea of selection meritocracy (Casillas, formerly Raul). There are the marquee imports who are likewise untouchable (CR7, previously Zinedine Zidane, Luis Figo).
Then there are the players that, whatever blood and sweat they put in, will never be favoured because they are outsiders or don’t have the right image (currently Gareth Bale, previously Claude Makelele).
Outside factors include the childish, spoiled Madrid crowd. Real’s fans feel fully entitled to jeer those outsider player types mercilessly, to the point that even success achieved without flair is in their mind no success at all. Real’s fans do charming things like attack those players’ cars. There is also the overwhelming, Fox News-esque media presence in Madrid making up the truth as they go along.
And there is the Real Madrid coach (a revolving cast, a gimmick of the show) one loss away from the sack. He is always conversely the focal point of the circus but also the least permanent member of it.
Real Madrid play the role of the villain without actually considering themselves the bad guy. Their on-field ideals are laudable, if unattainable. They would like to put the best, most-hyped players on the field wearing a white shirt, and win every match in glorious style. That is genuinely what drives them.
They believe that such a team, with all its intangibles, can be delivered instantaneously, by the chequebook.
After Real’s last Golden Age of 2002 a rot set into the club. Real’s marquee names Zidane and Ronaldo (Brazilian) became old and were overtaken by new stars Ronaldinho (playing for Barcelona) and Kaka (Milan). The second-tier players who provided a foundation, which is Barcelona’s (and previously Manchester United’s) strength, had all been sold because they weren’t sexy enough for Perez, leaving a skeleton squad.
Real Madrid went 12 years without winning the Champions League. Each season a new coach came and went.
They refused to plan for glory. In 2009 they thought buying Cristiano Ronaldo was the answer. In 2011 they thought hiring supermanager Jose Mourinho was the answer. Each new season they’ve thought that buying the flavour of the month was the answer.
Finally in 2014, under new Italian coach Ancelotti, they won the Champions League again. But a month later was the World Cup, the quintessential football festival where new names like James Rodriguez and Toni Kroos temporarily became the rage. Perez purchased them both and to accommodate sold Xabi Alonso and Angel di Maria from the winning team.
It seems over the years that Perez would rather the hype of new promise (and the money from shirt sales) than actually having a winning team.
Last Thursday morning, Real Madrid were unexpectedly eliminated from the semi-finals of the Champions League by unfancied Italian club Juventus.
Juventus scored an unforseen, somewhat isolated goal after 58 minutes and Real found that, for all the money they had splashed, they did not have the answer. The answer could have been the ex-Real Madrid Spaniard who scored twice for Juventus, Alvaro Morata, but he’d been tossed aside a year ago, not being sufficiently glam for Madrid’s marketing brand.
Real Madrid have built a thrilling team on-field. This season they won 22 matches in a row. They are less about possession and all about being fast and sharp to get the ball into attack as quickly as they can. They are as exciting as football gets. But Casillas should be put to pasture. Ronaldo was silenced when the chips were down in the second half. Karim Benzema was substituted injured. Bale was the main player who tried his damnedest, but missed his many chances and will be barracked for not bringing the Real toy-throwing crowd their win, possibly out of the club.
Small flaws popped up everywhere and eventually added up. Those systematic flaws in the club will continue this month when Ancelotti is replaced a year after bringing home the Champions League.
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