Manuel Pelligrini: Between a Rock and a Hard Place

50,000 people turned up to see Kaká presented as a Real Madrid player.

Head coach Manuel Pelligrini wasn't one of them. He admitted that he hadn't watched it on TV either. He is currently enjoying some well-earned vacation time in his native Chile.

He is set to return to Madrid on Sunday to begin preparations for next season. He will want to leave nothing to chance. While managing this Real Madrid team is every football manager junky's fantasy, the reality is far less inviting.

With over 200 million Euros spent on three of the world's most recognizable stars, all eyes will be on the Bernabeu this season. The club, the fans, and the media will all be expecting results from the word "go." Should this hastily assembled squad fail to gel, the blame will inevitably fall on Pellegrini's lap.

Elated Madrid fans will point to Kaká, Ronaldo, and Benzema as three reasons why the club cannot fail to win a trophy this season, but there are plenty of reasons to suggest they could.

The first is pressure. The media frenzy sparked by this summer's events will continue whether they win, lose, or draw. The story is too big to ignore, and must continue, whatever form it takes.

If they win, the press will hail Florentino Pérez as a messiah, and rain superlatives on the players. If the team fail to win with the style and panache expected, criticism will begin in earnest. Such is the nature of great expectations: when they are not met they turn against you.

The second reason they could fail is, ironically enough, the players. All the superstars in the world count for little if you can't get them to play as a team.

It may be the case that they have too many roosters in the hen house, as the Spanish saying goes. An excess of egos was behind the deflation of the last set of Galacticos to play in the Spanish capital. It is not inconceivable that it happen again.

The team he inherited was far from capable of challenging for titles last season. Not winning anything was made worse by suffering humiliations of historic proportions at the hands of Barcelona, Liverpool, and Real Union(!). This may require more of an overhaul than one summer can provide.

No one can deny the talent of the new signings, but they have weaknesses as well. Key among them is that only Raúl Albiol has played in Spain before. The three others, who are likely to make up the bulk of the team's attacking threat, are new to the league.

This is not an insurmountable difficulty but it adds to the difficulty of learning the language and developing a rapport with teammates. In a sport that is often decided by razor-thin margins it could mean the difference between glory and humiliation.

Then there is Barça.

The third and perhaps most important reason that they could fail to win any titles is their arch-rivals. If Barcelona can reproduce their form of last season, knocking them off their perch may simply be too tall an order.

Pep Guardiola's boys won everything last season, and did so with remarkable consistency. If Madrid stumbles out the gate, they may find themselves trailing by a considerable sum of points, and with little margin for error in the League.

The Copa del Rey by itself is simply not prize enough for a team built for world domination, and the Champions' League always requires a large dose of luck.

Success and failure for Spain's top two is measured in hegemony before all else. For all the glory of the Champions League, La Liga is still the best yardstick of dominance, and every team in Spain will have a point to prove against the new Galacticos.

Poor Pelligrini.

He is in a truly unenviable position.

If he pulls it off, the credit will go the way of the president and the Galacticos. If he doesn't, his head is the first on the chopping block.