The Galacticos

Back in 2000 Florentino Perez became the president of Real Madrid And he started the policy of buying a star player and promoting a youth player. It had some mix success to it.

But the question is how good were the galacticos? how were their tactics/formations playing style. Did you enjoy watching them. What were their pros and cons. How highly do you rate the galacticos?

My lasting thoughts of that team will always be, great players but what a horrible defence.

They had various different line ups trying to fix the problems.

Guti has a holding midfielder....Helguera and Pavon at the back....the failures of Samuel, Woodgate, Cicinho and various others.

But yeah, what formation and tactics were used? Depends what year your talking about.

In that 2001 team, sorry to be picky but Zidane was not in advance of Solari and Figo. They were all basically playing in the same line and Figo and Solari were most certaintly playing down the flanks.

Guti didnt play wide right either a year later, he was deeper in midfield, close to Makelele. It was part of the reason why Perez famously said "We will not miss Makélelé. His technique is average, he lacks the speed and skill to take the ball past opponents, and ninety percent of his distribution either goes backwards or sideways. He wasn't a header of the ball and he rarely passed the ball more than three metres."

He assumed players like Guti could easily play deep without him and keep things ticking over.

Figo was still on the right, Zidane was on the "left", Raul as a second striker behind Ronaldo.

When Becks arrived I believed they played a 4-2-3-1


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I dont go on wiki, other than for the exact quote from Perez, but thats widely known to be true.

However, that is how they played.

Zidane didnt play in front of a striker or strikers as you put it in your post. He was the one who floated about the place.

And of course Guti was never wide.

Basically from forward of Makelele there was fluidity and players moving everywhere, but how you had it in the first post seemed to point to a ridigness which they didnt have and also players not playing there any.

Anyway, minor thing, no point having a long discussion about it. Unless im mistaken, the tread is supposed to be more than that.

Kizu most of Zidanes starts at Madrid were Lm but he didnt stick to the position he drifted over the pitch.

We would have won it all in 02/03 if not for crippling injuries, was the best I ever saw Madrid play tbh

Perez is a businessman. he used all these super stars to make money

Between 2000 and 2003 the Glacticos were probably as good as any team I've ever seen.

Franchise's explanation of positioning is pretty much how I saw it as well. Zidane was on the "left", Guti in a deeper position.

whoops, sorry what section I was in, so let me elaborate a bit.

The 02/03 Champions league was certainly one to remember. Milan, Juve, Madrid, and Man U all had excellent teams at the time and it really could have been one by any of them but if you were to just look at the rosters on paper, Madrid had a team that was simply on another level.

I watched a lot more La Liga in those days because of them, and I could be wrong, but I always go the impression that there were just too many ego's. Not in the sense that they didn't get along or that there was selfish play all over the place, but other than makelele there wasn't another quality player on the team that would put on his hard hat and play all around football, that wasn't also an integral part of the offense.

Also, the defense was not that good. Woodgate, Helguera, Pavon, Raul Bravo, Gravesen, Salgado, all were less than desirable looking back.

Crimson wrote:We would have won it all in 02/03 if not for crippling injuries, was the best I ever saw Madrid play tbh

This.. They were just unfortunate to not win more.. My favorite team of all time, will probably never like a team more than them..

Ronaldo should of taken that PK btw

It was a rather entertaining team to watch but it was filled with too many superstars without a correct balance. The management could have been better, and there were many politics in the club which really prevented the team from getting enough substance to really get better results, the whole big mess that this team was ended with the galactico era's death, in a rather disappointing way.

The team, as a TEAM was not one of the best there ever was, and it was a great example of a team which won more because of the big talent that it had than because it was a success as a footballing philosophy.

The philosophy was to bring big name players and expect great stuff to happen and ultimately it all failed. Not a legendary team in any way imo.

The madrid of today imo is a bit of what that madrid should have been regarding the overall picture.