Time to pounce on Mbappe

No, to this very moment, we still haven't spent more than 100m on a player. So my argument factually stands while yours is hanging by a thread of a rumor. Just like you, I read that Madrid had matched PSG's offer, only to be deterred later by Mbappé's wage demands. So even if that rumor has some truth in it, Madrid still backed out later because they wouldn't match PSG's salary package. So again it all comes down to Madrid's reluctance to spend.

And no, spending is vital to any successfully long-lasting project. Madrid of all clubs should know that. The minute you start looking for "clever deals" and refrain from battling the elite clubs for the best in the market, you instantly become a mid-table team, and that's exactly how we are being run right now. Like a midtable team.

dude, you just "SPECULATED" that Florentino Perez is unwilling to spend more than a 100 mil

i proved you wrong in referring to a deal that we had agreed with Monaco, by their own admission for 180mil. This is not a hear say story, it's not a rumour, it's a facr. this is the sporting director of Monaco saying it lol

you anti perez agenda is clouding your reasoning. You can't speculate and then complain if i speculate in turn (when it's actually not a speculation but a factual statement)

And i will say this again, spending over 100 millions on players is not a recipe for success. If you operate in football and dont try to get clever with your recruitment, just thinking you can outspend people, you end up with the steaming pile of shit of a club that PSG have at the moment, a club ruled by money where the best player leaves the team without consulting the coach.

DoC, I’m with Nick that your hatred of Perez is clouding your reasoning!

1. PSG has a problem with its two stars. Sooner or later they will have to chose which one to keep. there already is open disagreements between the two. That fact plus the financial scrutiny on team / owner / president will sooner or later have effect on club’s finances. The president, this week was indicted on corruption charges. this time not in relation to PSG, but there are other suspicions and investigations. You make it sound as if they are the best club in world with their expenditures, but what have they to show for it, other than the mockery in allowing Neymar to leave whenever he choses!!

2. Mbappe is openly expressing interest in Madrid. It may be all posturing at this point, but there certainly are indications that interest is there.

3. Your read on Flo is all wrong!! We all find fault in the inactivity last season, but to say he won’t spend is a crock. And for you to say his lack of spending for one season makes us a second tier team is just nonsense. His resisting to venture into this inflated marketplace is understandable as is his statement of not wanting to pay over 100M for many players. How many of the 100M+ expenditures have worked out? Not many. And many of those criticizing his 45M for Brazilian kids, are not saying a word now. I don’t believe Flo will be against paying a large sum for the next Galactico. you seem not to accept the offer made on Mbappe and I suppose equally that he was will to pay the price for Pogba, but these are indeed facts not speculation. The issue in both cases was the salary demand not the transfer price!

And re wage structure, it is nothing more than a salary ladder plus a legal requirement to keep salaries within futbol income. Given most that were at the top of the ladder have either gone or are going, there is capacity to give the next galactico(s) salaries at the top of ladder. The issue before with Mbappe was he demanded a rung at the top when he was an unproven commodity. Totally different situation now.

Flo hasn't spent anything worth mentioning since Bale...  literally.  Kroos was bought for cheap.  Courtois as well.  that's about it.

He's taken a bunch of gambles (high priced ones) on kids like Kova, Asensio, etc.

The potentials hasn't paid off (as yet) and possibly never would. He and Sanchez had a strategy and it didn't work out. It happens. I just hope they honestly learn from this because this season really was our own demise.

the gambles were all right when we had a made team with world class players all over the place. but the young ones did not take the step we were expecting, biggest flops of them is Asensio, what a dud.

so now you sign big name players again.

If feel Neymar would be perfect for Madrid at this moment in time. If Madrid go for Mbappe they should go for Hazard as well imo.

It may still be too early to say the gambles haven't paid off. Unless all of them leave then we can say it hasnt. But what if someway somehow they turn the corner , it would look genius. But ofcourse the patience at madrid wears thin. Mind you, I'm just putting out the most optimistic scenario

As much as we all hate this season, and it's the worst I've ever experienced as a fan (mind u I've experienced many seasons), it helped that we went through it, so that we dont repeat the same mistake. But knowing Madrid we tend to make things unnecessarily interesting

Here's the thing though...  is it worth spending 300+ mil on 10 kids with the hopes of 2-3 MAYBE coming good or would you rather buy a couple of proven WC players?  Because that's what we literally did...  

Militao - 50
Rodrygo - 45
Vinicius - 45
Kova - 38
Danilo - 31,5
Odriozola - 30
Theo Hernandez - 24
Mariano - 21,5
Brahim Diaz - 17
Ceballos - 16,5
TOTAL = 318,5

Out of all these guys, we're HOPING the most recent ones in Vini, Rodrygo, Militao and Brahim Diaz come good.  The only one we've see is Vini really and we're holding out hope for others.

For 320 mil, we could have signed a few legit WC players lol.

hindsight is always 20/20, there are a couple of things your post is not accounting for. some of which are:
- the fact that those world class players are not signing to be on the bench. when we had Modric-Kroos-Casemiro in their primes winning CLs, spending 100 millions on Pogba for example was highly questionable.
- those kids have resale value, and we are getting our money back on almost all of them.
-we signed them at different period of times, based on needs, in a situation where we had a legit world class player in the starting XI and we needed a back up. we went with the talented youngster option because they are more patient and more docile
-we spent 75 millions on James and look how that turned out

I dont think spending money has ever been an issue; it's how we chose to spend it that changed, and will continue to change

hindsight is not 20/20 when you keep doing the same thing year after year with little to no results just because your ego is committed to it...  and you want to show that it was a good plan.  Flo kept doubling down.

And it's not like Flo over his 20 years has EVER been part of a Madrid club infrastructure that was either a) good at developing kids at Castilla and successfully bringing them to Madrid and b) buying young players from around the world and developing them.

We've been poor at both those things.  Yet, without changing anything philosophically or in terms of expectations, we were suddenly going to change that around.

It's arrogance of the highest order.

My worry is that it's becoming a necessity since we're no longer the fattest wallet on the planet. If this is the case, we better revamp much more than just throwing money at kids and hoping for the best.

the only result that matters is our trophy case and we justified all of our sporting decisions on the pitch winning 4 Champions league, it's the only truth that matters.

It was an excellent plan.

The trophy case was won with players that came from Mou's policies and a few of Zidane's sprinkled in.  Absolutely NOTHING from the current regime in charge of transfers.

The plan has sucked for year. The plan before was fantastic... but the manager was psychotic and ZZ got bored with being a sporting director.

your friends and their predictions have been pretty shit if im honest

Mr Nick09 wrote:your friends and their predictions have been pretty shit if im honest

EDIT:  Early part of this post was unnecessary.  You know your game.  I know mine.

I post RUMORS that we all know 99% of which never materialize even if there's truth in them... mainly because out of every 100 deals discussed in a calendar year, only a handful of transactions happen.  Nature of the business.

But I don't backtrack... i heard what i heard and i stand by it even if it doesn't come to fruition.

completely hypothetical scenario, and mind you i don't think this is realistic but since we are on the mbappe thread i guess i wanted peoples' opinion. if psg said (which they most likely won't, at least not this year) , we'll listen to offers for mbappe starting at 300 million, would anyone here be opposed to madrid throwing our hat in the race? and how far would you want us to go?

second part of the question hints at, if they say they'll listen to offers at 300 mill, it means other clubs can join in the race to sign the kid upwards of that amount, to create some sort of bidding war. anyway, my take, yes make the move, and go as far as possible. which would mean negotiating something preferable with mbappe's people as well. what do you guys think?

sportsczy wrote:Here's the thing though...  is it worth spending 300+ mil on 10 kids with the hopes of 2-3 MAYBE coming good or would you rather buy a couple of proven WC players?  Because that's what we literally did...  

Militao - 50
Rodrygo - 45
Vinicius - 45
Kova - 38
Danilo - 31,5
Odriozola - 30
Theo Hernandez - 24
Mariano - 21,5
Brahim Diaz - 17
Ceballos - 16,5
TOTAL = 318,5

Out of all these guys, we're HOPING the most recent ones in Vini, Rodrygo, Militao and Brahim Diaz come good.  The only one we've see is Vini really and we're holding out hope for others.

For 320 mil, we could have signed a few legit WC players lol.

To be fair, the market prices for young talent, as well as WC talent has literally doubled since we bought some of those players.

Mr Nick09 wrote:dude, you just "SPECULATED" that Florentino Perez is unwilling to spend more than a 100 mil

I didn't speculate, I gave you a direct quote from Florentino himself.

i proved you wrong in referring to a deal that we had agreed with Monaco, by their own admission for 180mil. This is not a hear say story, it's not a rumour, it's a facr. this is the sporting director of Monaco saying it lol

The only thing you were right about is the fact that Madrid matched PSG's 180m offer, but Madrid didn't sign Mbappé. Offering and actually signing the player are two different things. And Madrid decided to pull the plugs because they deemed his salary demands were too excessive. Result? They let go of a generational talent because of their reluctance to spend. So again, my point still stands.

you anti perez agenda is clouding your reasoning. You can't speculate and then complain if i speculate in turn (when it's actually not a speculation but a factual statement)

As opposed to you, I don't have an agenda. When Flo does something good, I praise him. When he does something bad, I criticize him. Is it really my fault that he has been doing more harm than good lately? Is it my fault that he's signing unproven kids and utterly refusing to bring in world class talent? Why is this so hard for you to understand?

And i will say this again, spending over 100 millions on players is not a recipe for success. If you operate in football and dont try to get clever with your recruitment, just thinking you can outspend people, you end up with the steaming pile of shit of a club that PSG have at the moment, a club ruled by money where the best player leaves the team without consulting the coach.

This is just dishonest on your part. I never said we should spend millions on players who don't deserve it. That's why I have always stood firm against signing players like Pogba for instance because he would cost a mountain of gold and doesn't have enough talent in him to warrant that sum. A player like Mbappé deserves it. A player like Neymar deserves it. A player like Eriksen deserves it. A player like De Gea deserves it.

We shouldn't spend money for the sake of spending money. But we should spend when we need to, and for the past three years (even when Ronaldo was still with us) we have been in dire need of signing world class talent to ease the transition and keep the core of the team elite. Instead the club decided to go down another road and as it turned out, it was a shitty road to take.

You don't have to agree with me on which players we should bring o sell. But at least be honest enough to admit that the club made a mistake in their planning and overall transfer policy. At least do that.

Mr Nick09 wrote:the only result that matters is our trophy case and we justified all of our sporting decisions on the pitch winning 4 Champions league, it's the only truth that matters.

It was an excellent plan.

This is wrong on so many levels. We won those CLs thanks to players who were bought before the policy changed.

This is the starting lineup of the CL final against Juventus:


Navas: decent (signed in 2014)
Carvajal: elite (homegrown talent)
Varane: elite (signed in 2011)
Ramos: elite (signed in 2005)
Marcelo: elite (signed in 2007)
Modric: elite (signed in 2012)
Kroos: elite (signed in 2014)
Case: decent (signed in 2013)
Ronaldo: elite (signed in 2009)
Isco: decent (signed in 2013)
Benzema: decent (signed in 2009)

All these players were signed before Madrid's change in policy, and they rode on their backs until they declined and became no longer elite without thinking about replacing them.

The success you're referring to was brought by those players, not the players we have been buying in recent years.

I’ve seen Sports at least twice refer to CL winning squad as being mostly Mourinho’ signings!

This is absolutely wrong. The only signings that were in Mourinho’s years were Varane and Modric. Varane was actually attributable to Zidane and Mourinho didn’t play Modric at all! Ramos, Marcelo, Benzema, Ronaldo, Pepe, Xabi Alonso, Arbeloa, all came earlier, Ronaldo, Xabi, Arbeloa and Benzema were part of Flo’s 2nd entrance, the year before Mourinho came. Carvajal, Navas, Kroos, Casemiro, Isco and Bale all came after be left.

Is this a case of changing history to fit an agenda?

The Demon of Carthage wrote:Navas: decent (signed in 2014) - signed by Perez
Carvajal: elite (homegrown talent) - signed by Perez
Varane: elite (signed in 2011) - signed by Perez
Ramos: elite (signed in 2005) - signed by Perez
Marcelo: elite (signed in 2007)
Modric: elite (signed in 2012)- signed by Perez
Kroos: elite (signed in 2014) - signed by Perez
Case: decent (signed in 2013) - signed by Perez
Ronaldo: elite (signed in 2009) - signed by Perez
Isco: decent (signed in 2013) - signed by Perez
Benzema: decent (signed in 2009) - signed by Perez

team built by Florentino Perez the incompetent, that went on to win 4 Champions in 5 years.

maybe he should suck even harder then

success as you pointed out, is not built overnight, there is a degree of a maturation that needs to take place. you are basically making points and then contradicting your own self trying to discredit Perez, well done

You're moving the goalposts again and you're purposely twisting my words which is not good if your intention is to have an honest debate here.

Let me remind you again of what I said:

We won those CLs thanks to players who were bought before the policy changed.

All these players were signed before Madrid's change in policy, and they rode on their backs until they declined and became no longer elite without thinking about replacing them.

The success you're referring to was brought by those players, not the players we have been buying in recent years.

The idea here is to try to make you understand that the 4 CLs you constantly bring up to defend our current transfer policy were actually won thanks to an entirely different transfer policy that Florentino no longer follows and one that he has abandoned completely. Proof of this is the fact that all the players who were directly or indirectly responsible for the wins were signed at least 4 or 5 years ago.

Now, if you could just try to look at things without bias or blind loyalty, you'll notice that there's a serious drop in quality between the players Florentino used to sign before the change in policy and the ones he has been signing lately. And that there's no way in hell we would've won all those CL trophies had he been acting like this all along.

This supposed "change in policy" that you keep referring to, is something that you made up in your mind. I have 0 reason to pay attention to it if I think it's BS.

Results in football are all that matter, winning 4CLs in 5 years is the historically greatest feet in European football history. This is a fact. That you guys belittle that fact to pump your own propaganda against Perez because you can't stomach a bad season and like to go on internet rants is pretty funny.

We dominated Europe thanks to smart signings and quality squad building from Florentino Pérez It did not happen overnight but it did happen. This is was not a drill lol

It's like I'm talking to a tree or something. Dude, do you read what people write or do you always prefer to bury your head in the sand and pretend like it's all sunshine and rainbows?

I just told you that the 4 CLs you keep fapping about were won by players who were bought 5 years ago and earlier, specifically during a period when Florentino was very active in the transfer market.

This year's trophy-less season didn't occur out of the blue. It was the direct consequence of 3 years of prolonged state of dormancy from a board who refused to bring in proper replacements for their declining stars and were content with signing unproven players.

If you really are unable to see the drastic shift in Florentino's transfer policy between now and pre-2015 and if you really have a hard time making a correlation between the worst season in Madrid's recent history and the way the board has been operating in the transfer market, then you should probably take a step back and re-evaluate your opinion without letting your incredibly intense bias and blind loyalty cloud your judgment.

We now live in la parallel universe where fans are equating 4 CLs in 5 years to a trophy less season haha

Trophy less seasons happen in football it's not the end of the world. What's not normal is the amount of winning we did, something which for some reason seems not to be appreciated enough around here. P

We ended a tremendously successful cycle and now we are starting another one. If you are a decision maker in football and your single strategy is to build success by signing extremely expensive players then you are a moron. A transfer policy can't stay the same year after year, it needs to evolve and to adapt itself to the team needs. That means sometimes you sign galácticos, sometimes you don't, you bet on younger talents , you rely on your academy, etc...

In the grand scheme of things this trophy less season, except for hurting the feelings of a few internet warriors who have too sensible a stomach, does not matter at all.

What does not make sense is praising Perez work over a few years which yielded tremendous success and then complain that after ONE season at the end of a winning cycle, he has lost the plot lol

No one's complaining about the areas in where we succeeded. Some had expected Flo to be more proactive about the inevitable end of a cycle, that you're referring to. You seem to do everything in your power to argue that Flo hasn't put a foot wrong in his preparations, but this wasn't merely a trophyless season. We're now stuck in a situation where we have to spend a lot more money than we would've had to with better preparation, and there are now less established, top players available. We're in need of an almost complete overhaul. It's not as bad as that of United, but it's an overhaul nonetheless, and we have higher standards than them.

No matter how you twist and turn your rhetorics, Real Madrid are now facing a long-term rebuild again. You'd think Flo had learnt from trial and error at this point, you'd think Real Madrid as an institution would have learnt from the things that went wrong and the things that went right with the past generation of players - but it seems he likes both trials and errors. He hasn't stuck to the things that he did right, he tried something new, and now we're facing the consequences of that - I wouldn't boil it all down to one trophyless season. We're back to scratch. We even have Bale as the spiritual successor to Robben, minus the talent.