The hype about the whole election of Real Madrid is over and now we await the rampage they are going to create in the transfer market. I think in the next few months we will potentially see clubs breaking the transfer record more than one time.
According to the reports this morning, Real has already broken the bank to buy Kaka.
With Manchester City, Real Madrid, the top 4 in England, and the rumours of Sunderland having a transfer kitty of $50 million, we are expecting to see a huge amount of money circulating in the next two to three months.
Coming back to my point about the drama that has been going on at Bernabeu with the election thing, as expected Perez won the election and appointed Manuel Pellegrini as their manager, which I think is a strange decision.
I have been following the Spanish League for a while now and Villarreal CF is a club I think is one of the best in the league. Given the size of the club and the money available, Manuel Pellegrini has worked wonders there.
Arguably, he is the one who revitalised the career of Juan Román Riquelme after his flop at Barcelona, and under him the like of Robert Pires and Ariel Ibagaza have been brilliant.
Now Manuel Pellegrini comes to the circus that is Real Madrid. This club is the equivalent to Newcastle United in the Premier League in terms of what goes on behind the scenes.
Manuel Pellegrini did work with some of the most gifted players in the world during his time at Villarreal CF, but if you think about it, he has only worked with top players who are from South America:
• Diego Forlan – Uruguayan
• Ariel Ibagaza – Argentine/Spanish
• Juan Román Riquelme – Argentine
• Marcos Senna – Brazilian/Spanish
• Matías Fernández – Chilean
• Gonzalo Rodríguez – Argentine
Obviously, the majority of the players at Villarreal CF are Spanish and they are from their own set up. But, apart from these four players, the others are all from either Spain or South America.
• Nihat Kahveci
• Giuseppe Rossi
• Jozy Altidore
• Robert Pirès
I think this will be a major issue for Manuel Pellegrini at Madrid.
With the squad made up of a large number of players from all around Europe, does he really have the ability to handle the egos of such a diversified squad?
Are we seeing the making of another Scolari?
sabbir_ahmed
Roar Rookie
I have no doubt in Pellegrini's quality, in Argentina he has worked wonders at San Lorenzo but there were doubts over his time at River Plate, and there are some questions over his skills in working in a major club. I just do not think he is the perfect manager for Real Madrid, with all the politics that goes on behind the scene it will be very hard to run his own game there and emulate the success he had at Villarrela. Yes, Jimbo I am big At Bilbao, had a pretty good season this year but the sadness of not winning the Spanish Cup will always be there. Looking forward to the next season, with all the big players playing in Span, La Liga will certainly be exciting.
jimbo
Guest
Pellegrini has a lot of respect in Spanish football and has done a terrific job at Villarreal finishing second to Barcelona this season. Diego Forlan also took out the La Liga golden boot. All this achieved with a very modest budget and 25K capacity home ground, compared to the amount of money Barcelona and the other big European clubs spend. With the big budget and big expectations at Real Madrid, the pressure will be on him. But I think he is up to it and they will do very well under his coaching. Diego Forlan is a top class striker and his untimely injury just before the Socceroos v Uruguay WC qualification game of 2005 is another reason why we managed to qualify ahead of them. Sabbir_ahmed nice article and congratulations on spelling Villarreal correctly – you must be a true fan of Spanish football – most people spell it wrongly with one r, particularly English journalists.