Brazil's Kaka fights for the ball with Paraguay's Julio Caceres during a World Cup 2010 qualifying soccer game in Recife, Brazil, Wednesday, June 10, 2009. Brazil won 2-1. AP Photo/Ricardo Moraes
He was destined to be in white. The protracted speculation linking Christiano Ronaldo to Real Madrid finally came to its expected conclusion. The size of the deal was always going to be mammoth.
And with the Portuguese star joining Kaká at the Bernabéu, the European football market is bracing itself for one of the busiest transfer periods on record.
But while Ronaldo’s signing was hardly a surprise, the signing of Kaká was, for some, a bigger disappointment.
Kaká was my final hope, a player I had marked as one to buck the trend of modern football and remain committed to the same club. He had resisted the temptations of money offered by Manchester City and spoke lyrically of his love of AC Milan.
Alas, it was not to be.
It’s a sad irony that the Brazilian’s final game for the Rossoneri should have coincided with the final appearance of club legend and the poster boy for one-club career players.
Since debuting at the age of sixteen, Paolo Maldini hadn’t been tempted away from the San Siro despite offers throughout a career that lasted over two and a half decades.
His is a dying breed.
Ronaldo was never going to be at Old Trafford for long.
Teammates next season, the contrast between Kaká and Ronaldo as people appears stark.
While Kaká appears affable, humble and graceful, Ronaldo has come to typify the modern footballer: spoilt, corruptible and controversial.
And yet, despite this difference, they both succumbed to the same cheque-book.
We shouldn’t begrudge players their right to freedom and to pursue the riches available to them for an obvious talent, but it is always with a tinge of sadness that you see a player like Kaká make such a move.
The second Galactico revolution under returning president Florentino Perez is already producing the same big name, any cost signings, as the first.
The ripple effects will now be widespread.
Agents across the world are bracing themselves for what many pundits are predicting will be one of the most active and expensive off-seasons on record.
With Manchester City now joining the ranks of elite clubs with the spending power of the traditional powerhouses, their cross town rivals in need of a replacement or three for Ronaldo, Real Madrid building the squad of superstars for its renaissance, and the likes of Franck Ribery, Samuel Eto’o, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Gianluigi Buffon, David Villa amongst others considering their fate, the movement across Europe will be immense.
Economic crisis or not, the money floating around the top end of town in European football is mammoth.
Whether the bubble bursts soon remains to be seen.
Season 2009/10 will have a very different look to it.
But the sight of Kaká in a Real shirt will confirm what we should already have known: loyalty in football is, like Maldini, retired.
Money talks the loudest.
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