Holding Midfield: The Galactico Project

[Holding Midfield]

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There’s an eery sense of deja vu surrounding Real Madrid this summer. Ten years ago, they had a change of coach, pushed one of the less high-profile but better players out the back door – with whispers that they weren’t that good anyway – and brought in a British star they didn’t really need to tap into Anglo-Saxon markets. Sounds familiar doesn’t it? When Florentino Perez set about restarting the Galactico project in the summer of 2009, there was a sense that he had realised his mistakes. While it had been a success off the pitch, the marketing brilliance of Real’s policy had eroded little by little their play on it, and this time around, with Barcelona stronger than ever before, there would have to be a stronger focus on building a cohesive team rather than the “Disneyfication” Steve McManaman said of Perez’s first term. One of the Galacticos of the second term was a manager, Jose Mourinho, who was given far more power than a Madrid coach would typically have. The polarisation and overall failure in Mourinho’s tenure has left Carlo Ancelotti with a strong but moody squad and, ultimately, Perez’s first term remains his best. Although he stood […]

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