Picking a Real Madrid Cult Heroes XI

Every club has its cult heroes, and Real Madrid are no exception.

This is not a list of the best players to have played for Los Merengues but of players who permanently endeared themselves to the club’s supporters through their attitude and work rate, sporadic moments of genius or defining contributions.

This sort of list is highly subjective. There are players who will evoke fond memories for some and not for others, and there will also be others who were well loved in their country of origin but didn’t make quite the same impression on Madrid’s domestic fanbase.

With this in mind, please feel free to mention and discuss other players of this type in the comments section.

Without further ado, here is our Real Madrid cult heroes XI.

Goalkeeper: Bodo Illgner

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Bodo Illgner was an erratic and occasionally reckless goalkeeper, but one who still has some devotees among the Real Madrid support.

The German made 40 appearances during their league title success in the 1996-97 season and was the man between the sticks when the club ended their 32-year quest for a seventh European Cup triumph with victory over Juventus in the 1998 final.

No self-respecting Madridista would ever pick him ahead of the likes of Francisco Buyo, Iker Casillas or Miguel Angel when naming the club’s best goalkeeper, but he was nevertheless a popular and successful figure in his short time as the Madrid No. 1.

In 2013, Marca readers voted him the club’s greatest foreign goalkeeper of all time.

Defender: Jonathan Woodgate

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Real Madrid paid £13.4 million to sign Jonathan Woodgate from Newcastle United in the summer of 2004, but it was 13 months before the Bernabeu crowd got to see their new signing in action.

Numerous injury setbacks sidelined the English defender until then, and his bad fortune continued into his debut, a 3-1 home win against Athletic Bilbao. An own goal and a red card for two bookable offences saw his career in the capital get off to the worst possible start.

However, the usually critical Madrid press decided to focus on the positives. Per Sid Lowe of The Guardian, one columnist described Woodgate as “a centre-back with something of Hierro about him. Strong in the challenge, elegant with the ball at his feet, powerful in the air, he has that great virtue for a defender—when he clashes with an opponent, it hurts all over.”

Unfortunately, it was Woodgate’s own body that continued to creak. He was went on loan to Middlesbrough at the end of the season ahead of a permanent deal having made just nine league appearances in two years in Madrid.

But the positive impression he made, both on and off the pitch—where he made a real effort to learn Spanish and understand the country's culture—and the feeling of regret at what might have been ensure that he is still fondly remembered at the Bernabeu.

Defender: Francisco Pavon

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In any other circumstances, the name of Francisco Pavon would not have gone down in the Real Madrid history books. He was little more than a serviceable centre-back, a solid product of the club’s youth academy and played during an era which did not yield a great number of trophies.

But Pavon’s name will never be forgotten as he was the poster boy for president Florentino Perez’s plans to populate the Madrid squad with a mix of high-ticket star players and cantera graduates—"Zidanes y Pavones," as the saying went.

Through little fault of his own, he became associated with the relative failure of that project.

But time provides perspective, and while he was clearly never destined for greatness, Pavon’s time at Madrid is perhaps due a reappraisal. He should, at very least, be remembered more fondly than most of the foreign defenders of questionable quality that arrived during his time at the club.

Defender: Gregorio Benito

Gregorio Benito was, bar two years on loan at Rayo Vallecano, a one-club man, representing his beloved Real Madrid on over 400 occasions in all competitions during 14 seasons in the capital.

The Toledo-native was a natural athlete and a strong and imposing presence in the centre of defence in a period that fell between two of the truly great Madrid sides: the Ye-ye team of the 1960s and the marvellous Quinta del Buitre outfit of the mid-to-late eighties.

He did, though, still enjoy a highly successful career, winning six league titles and five Copa del Rey trophies during his time at the Bernabeu. But at Madrid, a club defined by their continental success, his lack of a European trophy often sees him overlooked in all-time best XIs.

Regardless, his commitment and bravery, alongside his clear love for the club, quickly saw him taken into the hearts of Madridistas, and he remains a popular figure to this day.

Midfielder: Christian Karembeu

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Christian Karembeu was far from a prolific scorer during his career, and that was particularly evident at Real Madrid, where he scored just once in 51 appearances in La Liga.

However, there was something about the club’s long quest for a seventh European Cup triumph that inspired the Frenchman of Pacific Island roots to get his shooting boots on.

With Los Merengues trailing 1-0 away to Bayer Leverkusen in the first leg of the quarter-final, he scored a vital 74th-minute equaliser. Then, in the return leg in Madrid, he opened the scoring just after half-time in a 3-0 victory.

He followed those goals up with another in the semi-final, first leg win over Borussia Dortmund, following up Fernando Morientes’ opener with a second that helped establish a lead Madrid were able to successfully defend in Germany in order to progress to the final.

The midfielder is sometimes unfairly characterised as a player whose impressive medal collection owes more to the quality of his team-mates than his own abilities. Indeed, there are some who remember him more for his ex-wife than his skills on the football pitch.

But in Madrid, his contribution to the 1998 Champions League success—the triumph that ended their 32-year drought in the European Cup—is still cherished to this day.

Midfielder: Gunter Netzer

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Gunter Netzer joined Real Madrid in 1973, but it wasn’t until the arrival of his international colleague Paul Breitner a year later that he really began to show what he could do at the Bernabeu.

In full flow, the German was an exquisite footballer, “striding through defences with his flowing mane of blond hair, striking with those colossal size-eleven feet fifty-yard cross-field passes of astounding accuracy,” as Brian Granville wrote in the 1982 edition of his Book of Footballers.

“In my first year at Real, he played like I’ve never seen anybody else, except Franz Beckenbauer perhaps,” Breitner told Cristian Nyari of Bundesliga Fanatic in 2012.

Madrid won the league title in 1974-75 and again the following season before Netzer departed to Grasshopper Club Zurich, where he played for just one season before retiring from the game.

His wonderful play and the success he enjoyed in his brief spell in Madrid do, however, assure him of a place in the club’s history books.

Midfielder: Guti

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Guti joined the Real Madrid academy at the age of nine and went on to make almost 550 appearances for the club in all competitions before departing the Bernabeu in 2010.

He was never the most consistent performer, but whether in midfield or further forward, he was always capable of producing a moment of magic to enliven a match.

His audacious backheel assist for Karim Benzema in Madrid’s win away to Deportivo La Coruna in early 2010 will live long in the memory. So beautifully was it executed that ex-Madrid assistant Angel Cappa suggested that it was deserving of display at the Prado, as per Sid Lowe of The Guardian.

Guti’s talents were rarely appreciated outside the capital—as just 13 caps for Spain and the offensive chants that followed him across the country testify—but his superb technical attributes and love for the club made him a favourite among Madridistas.

Midfielder: Paul Breitner

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When Paul Breitner arrived at Real Madrid in the summer of 1974, he came with a reputation as a outspoken, strong-willed and successful attacking full-back—a winner of three consecutive league titles and a European Cup with Bayern Munich, alongside European Championship and World Cup medals with Germany.

He switched to a central-midfield role in Spain, forming a solid partnership with fellow Germany international Gunter Netzer. Together, they helped Madrid immediately claw back the Primera Division title from the Barcelona side of Johan Cruyff.

While his afro, bushy beard and intense stare made him hard to miss, it was Breitner’s strong and consistent performances that endeared him to the Madrid support. He is still remembered fondly despite only spending three years at the club.

His staunch left-wing views—at least in his earlier years, before the McDonald's adverts—cement his status as a cult figure.

Forward: Juanito

Few players embodied Madridismo as strongly as Juan Gomez Gonzalez, known to all as Juanito.

He joined Real Madrid from Burgos in 1977 and quickly established himself as a fan favourite by virtue of his technical skills and never-say-die attitude. A strong performance in a 3-2 victory against Barcelona at the Nou Camp certainly helped his cause.

The right winger enjoyed a highly successful career in Madrid, but he is best remembered for his ability to inspire the team to great comebacks.

His joyful reaction after being substituted toward the end of a 4-0 win over Borussia Monchengladbach following a 5-1 defeat in Germany epitomised the passion that made him the player he was and assured him of long-lasting cult-hero status among the Madrid support.

This passion did occasionally spill over into violence—most notably in a brutal attack on Lother Matthaus in 1987—but such incidents did little to dampen the reverence in which he was held by Madridistas.

Fans still regularly call upon the spirit of Juanito to lead the team to modern-day comebacks, while his signature song is still chanted by the Ultras Sur in the seventh minute of every home match.

He died in a car accident in 1992 on the way back to Merida after travelling to the capital to watch his beloved Real Madrid in action.

Forward: Predrag Mijatovic

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Predrag Mijatovic was a highly talented and occasionally volatile forward who joined Real Madrid in the summer of 1996 following a string of impressive performances for Valencia the previous season.

His first year in the capital yielded a league title, but it was in the second that he made his most memorable contribution to the club’s history.

The Yugoslavia international scored the only goal of the game—reacting quickest to a deflected shot from Roberto Carlos to round Angelo Peruzzi and apply a neat finish—as Los Merengues won their first European Cup in 32 years with a 1-0 victory over Juventus in Amsterdam.

He concluded a short, sweet and successful three-year spell in Madrid the following year but is still revered by the club’s supporters to this day.

Per Tomas Roncero of AS (in Spanish), the familiar chant of "Pedja Mijatovic, la, la, la, la, la, Pedja Mijatovic, la, la, la..." accompanied him when he made a popular appearance at a Madrid-based supporters club last year.

Forward: Jose Antonio Reyes

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Jose Antonio Reyes arrived in Madrid from Arsenal at the start of the 2006-07 season as part of a loan swap deal that saw Julio Baptista move the other way.

The Andalusian was far from a regular starter under Fabio Capello, but his six league goals included two that helped the club to the league title with a 3-1 victory over Mallorca on the final day of the season.

Reyes replaced the departing David Beckham in the 65th minute of play with Madrid trailing to Fernando Varela’s early goal. He converted Gonzalo Higuain’s low cross for the equaliser three minutes later and later, after Mahamadou Diarra had headed Madrid into the lead, produced a lovely curling finish from outside the area to round off both the victory and season in style.

Per Danny Griffiths of the Daily Mail, Reyes was keen to extend his stay at the Bernabeu. However, the club were not interested and he instead joined Atletico Madrid in a €12 million deal.

But even four years with their city rivals is insufficient enough to deny him a certain place in Madrid’s history as the player whose goals secured them their 30th league title.