Money matters: Are Real Madrid falling into European darkness without the stars?

Real Madrid took a European tumble in Manchester.

Friday night marked the first time Real Madrid were knocked out of the Champions League under Zinedine Zidane. What will hurt them even more is that they lost both legs of a Champions League tie after a long time.

Last time that happened was back in 2009, when they were beaten 1-0 at home and 4-0 away by another Spanish coach – Rafael Benitez, who was then managing Liverpool.

Real Madrid managed to recover quite well from that embarrassment, winning the competition four times in the next 11 years. However, will they be able repeat that and do something similar in the coming decade? While one should never bet against them, it does seem quite unlikely.

How did Real Madrid manage to turn things around in 2009?

Back in 2009-10, Florentino Perez spent over 250 million Euros, signing likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Xabi Alonso, Kaka and Karim Benzema – 3 of whom would go on to spend their prime years at the club. In the following years there was a further addition of world-class talent with likes of Gareth Bale, Luka Modric & Toni Kroos coming in.

Things fell into place and even though Real Madrid weren’t playing the best football in Europe, they still won the trophies due to sheer talent & will to win of their superstars.

Can they do the same in 2020?

Not really. The 2020 Real Madrid isn’t the financial behemoth it once was. When Zidane returned in 2019, he publicly mentioned his intent to bring in players like Paul Pogba, Kylian Mbappe & Eden Hazard.

Of these three, they only managed to get Hazard - who probably was the 3rd preferred option - at a transfer fee of €100 million, which, in hindsight looks like a massively bad piece of business.

Of late, people at Real Madrid, including Perez and Zidane, have been looking to temper expectations as far as big spends are concerned. This is of course understandable, even if there were any plans of a big financial outlay, they wouldn’t have survived the brutality of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

What is the alternative then?

First thing on their list should be to keep Zidane. He seems to be the only manager who can simultaneously provide both stability and success to the club, his results speak for him. This of course will be tough if Perez can’t find money to improve the squad.

The recent La Liga win will buy the club some time with the fans and a relatively average 2020-21 season might also be tolerated. Beyond that, however both Zidane and the fans are likely to lose patience.

The first possible step for Perez could be to ensure that the long overdue departure of Gareth Bale and James Rodriguez happens in the current transfer window, which will also help get some cash in hand.

The plan post that should be to use his famed deal-making skills along with Zidane’s charisma to get Mbappe to Real Madrid in 2021. While chances of that happening stay slim, if it does, it will at the very least make the club believe that this new decade, in terms of European success, might not be as gloomy as it seems right now.