Real Madrid: The scape goat era

Real Madrid, arguably the biggest football club in the world, were in a title drought for 3 seasons under the Presidency of Florentino Perez. Perez decided that he should bring in a famous player every season to make Real an even bigger team. It started in 2000 with the arrival of Luis Figo from arch-rivals Barcelona. Zinedine Zidane followed the next year from Juventus and then Ronaldo from Internazionale. Mega star David Beckham was next and was another Englishman Michel Owen. Real did not perform as expected. Or maybe they could have as the Figo and Zidane brought Real their 9th European Cup and Ronnie brought in the 29th Spanish League. Then Perez did the biggest mistake of his tenure at Madrid. He sacked the highly ambitious and succesful coach Vicente Del Bosque. With Del Bosque went away Fernando Hierro, a legend and a true leader at Real. Real were without a true leader now and without a coach which could handle egos and produce fine results. The next coaches of Real included assistant coaches and Goal keeper coaches who could never guide Real to first place.

During these three years till the time Florentino Perez resgined Real were without a trophy. But Perez and the rest of the Madrid board never blamed anyone except themselves. Perez never said how Claude Makelele harmed the team or how Owen's short stint made others play badly. The board accepted their faults and took the blame. Even when they sold Figo (for a discount of around 45 million dollars), Perez did not blame Figo for the poor results, nor did he blame the trainers, all he did was say that "There was something wrong".

In July 2nd, 2006, lawyer Ramon Calderon pipped Juan Palacios and was elected President of Real Madrid amidst controversy which almost even saw his loose his seat. At that time Calderon promised arrivals of Kaka from Milan, young Fabregas from Arsenal and Arjen Robben from Chelsea. Calderon promised three big names, but brought in none. He and his sporting director, Pedrag Mijatovic (former Real player) appointed Fabio Capello as the new trainer.

Capello brought in boring and defensive football at the Bernabeau. Fans jeered, but results were produced. Madrid were unlucky to lose out to Betis in the Kings Cup and Roberto Carlos' mistake cost them heavily in the Champions League, but else, Madrid did put on a good league performance. But, now, under Calderon, the scape goat era began.

The first scape goat was Ronaldo. I agree that Ronnie's performances have deteriorated in the past two years, and he is no where close to the player he once was, but ever since Ronnie arrived at Los Blancos, he had been their highest goal scorer. Ronnie was then blamed by Capello (and Calderon) for influencing younger players like Robinho (who has never performed well for two successive matches since his big money move from Santos) and even Marcelo (who played almost no part last season) towards not helping the team. All Calderon said was that he saw Ronaldo as a Real Madrid player but never backed him. Never did we hear once saying he had faith in Ronaldo. Ronaldo was eventually sold to AC Milan and we then saw glimpses of the old Ronnie. How could Ronnie come back in form in just two weeks after leaving Madrid? The problem was not with the player, but with the club. Now, while helping Ronaldo recover, Milan found out that Ronnie has a metabolism disease. Surprisingly, Madrid never found this out for 4.5 years when Ronnie was with them.
The second scape goat was Emerson. Puma arrived from Juventus with Capello. Madrid's lacklustre performance was blamed directly on Emerson. Mohamadou Diarra was an overly expensive buy, so blaming him would make not help Calderon in his Presidency era, so he simply blamed Emerson. This even cause the Bernabeau faithful to jeer Emerson during games. No wonder Emerson was so eager to leave Real this summer.
Third scape goat, was David Beckham. As Calderon saw that Real's performances were not consistent, he decided to disgrace Beckham by giving him an insulting contract, so instead, Becks signed with LA Galaxy of USA. Calderon then anounced that Beckham would join Galaxy in the nest campaign, and also announced, through Capello, that Beckham would never play a match in for the whites. Madrid, never won, Becks was called back, and he led Madrid to the 30th title.
Antonio Cassano was next. He did fall out with Capello, but how come they never made up? Every club sees player and coach have disputes, but Real thought that Cassano would be no help to them. A genius like Cassano would always help. But why didnt Madrid use Cassano even after firing Capello. All Real fans can hope for is, that they recall Cassano after his stint at Sampdoria. Don Fabio was the next scape goat. I agree Capello brought very boring football to Real, but he did manage producing results. After tow years, Real were not beaten by Barcelona, and Real outplayed Barca at both the Bernabeau and Camp Nou. Capello had a hand in selling Ronnie and seeing Becks on the bench, but unlike Calderon (who saved himself), Capello tried saving Real. When he showed he could bench Ronnie, Becks and Madrid's son - Raul, players fought hard for their spots and Capello installed the winning spirit in the Madrid boys. Finally, only 11 days after helping Real win the title, Capello saw the end of his second stint at the Spanish Capital.

Calderon did fulfil one of his promises this summer, by buying Arjen Robben. But Robben, was sold by Chelsea only after they bought Florent Malouda from Lyon. Malouda has proved in recent seasons that he is a better winger than many others, and after Chelsea secures his services and were frustrated by Robben's injury woes, they sold him to Real. Otherwise, it was impossible to get Robben from Chelsea.
Getting Kaka and Cesc Fabregas seems more and more impossible by the day. Calderon has to look for new set of players to save his name at Real and has to look for other players to make scpae goats of. Splashing out around 30 million euros on Pepe (from Porto) made no sense at the start and seeing his performances now, it maked half as much as sense as it made before. So far, Pepe looks like an understudy at Real Madrid Castilla. What is more sad for Real is that both Chivu and Milito could have been bought if Madrid would have paid around 7 million euros more on what they bought comical Pepe for. What I can see is Pepe and Baptista being the next scape goats at Real and maybe followed by Saviola and Soldado.