The club secures the services of many world class players every year and is always on the lookout for more. Historic players have graced the field of the Santiago Bernabeu, while many aim to follow in their footsteps. However, they have not won La Liga since 2008 and havn’t won the Champions League since 2002. For such a big club, that spends a vast amount of money this is bad. Very bad.
Money does not always guarentee success, Real Madrid show this every season. Constantly being outshone by Barcelona who, although spending alot of money on players, have many that have come up through their ranks in the squad. The main difference is Real Madrid buy great players while Barcelona make great players.
For further evidence we may need to sit back and wait. Blackburn and QPR have been bought by megabucks organisations and people, but aren’t ripping up the Premier League. Malaga secured the services of brilliant players during the summer, 9 signings overall including Ruud Van Nistelrooy, Santi Cazorla and Joaquin.
At the time being they sit 6th in the table, with results varying every week. Manchester City showed the change isn’t instant, they didn’t break into the Champions League in their first season of riches and it’s only now that they are real contenders for the title. Next season and the season after will show if Malaga really do offer a threat or if it will all die down.
The most interesting case at the moment is Anzhi Makhachkala, a real mouthful to say but with owners that are ready to spend and invest into the club. A very unknown club to world football before the side is now turning heads. During the summer they signed Yuriy Zhirkov from Chelsea, not that huge news as it was his native country. The real one to grab the headlines was the arrival of Samuel Eto’o from Inter Milan.
Recent rumours suggest the arrival of more big names in January, with almost every name under the sun being mentioned. I’m not going to go into it all, we could be here for hours. All I will say is that keep our eyes peeled in January, this club is on the hunt. This may well be the most telling story in whether money does guarentee success but for now we will just have to wait while the Anzhi egg hatches fully.
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