They lost in one summer those who best embodied their past glory. Their two captains and a little more than that, their two icons. In a few weeks, Sergio Ramos and Lionel Messi, four Champions Leagues each, ended up leaving Real Madrid and FC Barcelona. For years, the two biggest clubs of the 21st century attracted the best, now the stars are leaving the Catalan ship and the Madrid liner is struggling to convince the greatest players in the world. Yet it was summer to scrap big fish.
The agony of Barça, the reconquest of MU: our notebook of the European transfer window
Not only Antoine Griezmann, Lionel Messi, Sergio Ramos and Raphaël Varane have deserted the ranks but Cristiano Ronaldo, Romelu Lukaku, Giorgio Wijnaldum or Jadon Sancho, who have aroused the desires of Barça or Real in recent months, have chosen other clubs to feed their ambitions. This market, like those which preceded them, mark a certain downgrading of Barça and Real in the world hierarchy.
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A 10 de la Masia: Ansu Fati inherits Messi’s number
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Yesterday At 10:49
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Far from Paris and Manchester
When Manchester United and PSG offer pharaonic contracts to attract the best players in the world, when Manchester City or Chelsea exceed the symbolic bar of 100 million euros in compensation to afford their first choices, the two giants, with ambitions Riquiqui on the transfer market, were satisfied with end of contracts (David Alaba, Sergio Aguero, Memphis Depay) and Real simply paid 30 million euros for Eduardo Camavinga at the very end of summer.
180 million swept aside: “We understand why Mbappé does not want to extend”
For three mercatos, the summer of 2019 and the arrivals of Antoine Griezmann and Eden Hazard, their last big investments, Barça and Real have never put more than 30 million euros on a player, if we except the turn sleight of hand made on the Arthur-Pjanic exchange, when the English clubs (both Manchester, Chelsea, Liverpool and even Arsenal), Paris and Bayern strengthened themselves significantly. How to explain such lukewarm investment?
Since Suarez, a billion for nothing
First, because both Real and Barça ended up paying for years of failed recruitments and financial slippages. Since 2014 and the signing of Luis Suarez, no Barca rookie, with the possible exception of De Jong, has really weighed on the fate of the Blaugrana club. And failures (Pjanic, Malcolm, Arthur, Dembélé, Turan, Alcacer) succeeded fiascos (Coutinho, Griezmann). For seven years, the investment has exceeded one billion euros for a catastrophic return. The Real, him, continues to drag like a ball the change of course of its recruitment policy: less stars at exorbitant prices, more young people with very big potential.
“One of the biggest flops in the history of the transfer window”, Griezmann at Barça: it had to stop
Cooled by the files James Rodriguez and Gareth Bale, whose returns on investment were disappointing, constrained by a transfer market gone crazy in 2017, Real turned away from its DNA: Luka Jovic, Militao, Rodrygo, Vinicius landed against 203 million euros all the same and all had difficulty, to different degrees all the same, to assert themselves in the Spanish capital. Add to that the Eden Hazard industrial accident and you will easily understand the current shyness of the Merengues. Basically, only Thibaut Courtois has permanently established himself as a must and indisputable among the Madrid recruits since 2014.
Barça can no longer lie, Real still give the change
The COVID-19 crisis has weakened finances (300 million euros in losses for Real, 500 for Barça) much less solid than those of clubs backed by shareholders with unlimited funds (PSG, City) and for a year, here is Real and, above all, Barça more anxious to part with salaries which widen their deficits than to attract stars who restore their image. Others took the opportunity to strip them (Messi, Griezmann, Ramos, Varane). Barça therefore ended up imploding in the heart of the summer after a Messi soap opera. The departure of the best player in its history has definitely exposed the weaknesses of a club that can no longer lie. Real again gave the change by communicating pharaonic offers to PSG for Kylian Mbappé.
Lionel Messi during his farewell press conference at Barça
Credit: Getty Images
But we can question the strategy of the Madrilenians who waited for the last moments of the transfer window to attack a player he knew unassailable. Did Real bluff? Did he really have the means to snatch Mbappé this summer? Basically, it doesn’t matter. The conclusion remains the same: Madrid will only be able to afford the world champion if he does not extend his contract. Even the great Real, that of the Galactics, is there today …
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Griezmann says goodbye to Barça: “I gave everything for this shirt”
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Yesterday At 10:22
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“One of the biggest flops in the history of the transfer window”, Griezmann at Barça: it had to stop
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09/01/2021 At 12:10 AM
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