Is Florentino Perez Headed Down A Familiar Road?

(Photo by Jasper Juinen/Getty Images)

Zinedine Zidane, David Beckham, Luis Figo, Ronaldo, Antonio Cassano, Michael Owen. 

In case you didn't catch the trend, these all were players of Real Madrid at one point during their famed "Galacticos" era, which was Florentino Perez's theory of buying ONE megastar player each season to go along with promoting players from their youth academy.

While the Galacticos provided beautiful and entertaining football, the trophies and results were limited. Outside of the La Liga title in 02-03 and the Supercup De Espana in 2003, Madrid went trophy less from 2003-2006. 

In addition to the trophy drought, there was a coaching carousel every year. Vincente Del Bosque, Carlos Queiroz, Jose Antonio Camacho, Mariano Garcia Remon, Vanderlei Luxemburgo and Juan Ramon Lopez Caro all managed Madrid from 2002 to 2006 whether it was on an interim or permanent basis.

It wasn't til the end of the 2007 campaign when Madrid finally had one new piece of silverware by winning La Liga.

Ironically by then the Galacticos era had come to an end, with the last two of the Galacticos, David Beckham and Roberto Carlos playing their last games for the storied club, whilst Ronaldo was sold in that January 2007 transfer window to AC Milan.

At that moment on June 17th, 2007 every last piece of the Galacticos monster had officially be finished. Perez had been removed a few years prior with Ramon Calderon being the man credited and responsible for dethroning Barcelona's reign as Spain's kings and champions.

Real would go on to win La Liga again for the 2007-2008 campaign. Bernd Schuster was in his 1st year as coach of Madrid, and along with the big signings Arjen Robben, Wesley Sneijder, and Pepe, Madrid was able to coast to the Liga title, in part to the falling apart of Barca, but also through semi attractive football that Schuster could conjure.

But again failure came about that year, with Madrid being unable to get to the round of 16 in Champions League play falling to Roma 2 - 1 both legs and 4 - 2 overall on aggregate.

Last year however was a MAJOR step back for Real.

During the summer 2008 transfer window Calderon had signed Ezequiel Garay, the young Argentine defender from Racing Santander to address the thin backline, but immediately loaned him back to Racing.

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