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Real Madrid is a club that has earned the respect of countless throughout its existence. It is a team that has overcome the trickiest of challenges.
In the last decade, the best thing that happened to them was nine years ago when Cristiano Ronaldo signed. He came from Manchester United for a transfer fee of €94 million, a world record transfer fee at the time.
Ronaldo lifted Real Madrid to a whole new level. He scored 451 goals for them in the 438 matches he played, the highest ever tally by any player at Los Blancos. The prolific Portuguese has five Ballon d'Or awards to his name, four of which came during his time at Real Madrid.
Real Madrid defeated Liverpool, 3-1, in the Champions League Final last season making Ronaldo a five-time Champions League winner as his team completed a hat-trick of UCLs. For the first time ever, a club managed to achieve this feat since the current format of UCL came into effect.
THE BIGGEST SALE IN THE HISTORY OF REAL MADRID...
After playing for nine years for Los Merengues, the 33-year-old joined Juventus in a rather shocking move.
Immediately following the transfer, over a million fans unfollowed Real on social media whereas Juventus gained more than 1.5 million fans within 24 hours.
The signing of Cristiano has effected Juve's social media presence very positively. The tweet confirming his arrival got over thousands of like and retweets. So far, their new number seven's marketing potential has been used excellently by the Italian giants.
Ronaldo's effect on jersey sales has also been quite noticeable. When the official Ronaldo kit was released by Juventus, it ran out of stock as soon as it was made available. More than 520,000 jerseys were sold in just 24 hours.
According to Fox Sports, that adds up to more than $60 million, which is more than half of the player's transfer fee. These numbers are quite extraordinary when you compare them to those of other superstar signings such as Neymar Jr, who only sold 10,000 jerseys in the first 24 hours when he moved to PSG.
The last few months have been bittersweet for Real Madrid. Their 13th UCL victory, Zidane's resignation and Ronaldo's transfer, all these moments came around the same time.
WILL THERE BE A NEW GALACTICO?
Real sold their best player for €100 million, which is six million more than what they gave to Manchester United in 2009. Selling him at the age of 33 for such a high price earns Madrid a good amount of profit. However, what they decide to do with this profit is the million dollar question.
The European Champions were linked with Neymar and Mbappe but both of them intimated their intention to stay at PSG. Now, Real Madrid are trying to rope in Eden Hazard or Edinson Cavani now as they look for a replacement for their club's record goalscorer.
Concurrently, they are also being linked with 2018 World Cup Golden Glove Thibaut Courtois, which looks like a deal that is possible.
WHO WILL FILL IN THE BOOTS OF CR7?
The idea is there for Gareth Bale to finally step up and take over from Ronaldo at the Bernabeu this season. He has struggled with injuries in his five years at the club and, as a result, fell out-of-favor with former coach Zidane.
However, he has scored some sublime goals every once in a while showing a glimmer of his true quality and reminding the world of his potential to be one of the best. The bicycle kick goal in the Champions League final win over Liverpool is one of his best goals ever.
WHAT'S NEXT FOR LOS BLANCOS?
Real Madrid have a competitive pre-season campaign this time, starting with Manchester United and Juventus in the International Champions Cup. Real will then face local rivals Atletico Madrid in the UEFA Super Cup fixture.
If Lopetegui can handle the difficult task of leading a post-Ronaldo Real Madrid, they would surely have a huge chance of winning trophies this year as well as has become their tradition.
