Kylian Mbappe is staying at PSG. The most anticipated transfer saga of this season is over after the French young sensation decided to stay where he is.
Real Madrid chased him for 5 years. After every season, the fans dreamed of him wearing the white jersey which never happened.
Finally, this time around, after the drama peaked, fans seem to be done with him, and so do Real Madrid.
With the brilliant resurgence of Vinicius and Rodrygo and adding Camavinga, Fede, Militao, Alaba, Cortouis and their new signing Rudiger, anyone might think that Real Madrid got nothing to worry about and that they are well prepared for the next 5 years at least even without Mbappe.
Well, taking lessons from the past, Real Madrid certainly have something to worry about.
Florentino Perez has been the president of Real Madrid for more than two decades now. Real reached extraordinary heights, even to higher standards compared to their own excellence, under his presidency.
One thing which has been common during his tenure is his obsession with creating a ‘Galactico’ side. The obsession was real to such an extent that he did not bother to spend exorbitant amounts of money.
The fact that before Neymar, he broke the record transfer fees 3 times, says a lot about his galactico obsession.
However, his tendency seems to have changed. Rather than building a team full of stars, he decided to look into a solid sporting project, something which will help the team dominate even more in the future.
The change in the scenario can be noticed from the 2016-17 season when Real became the first side to retain the Champions League.
One can realise the fact by the players Real Madrid signed since then. Instead of going for big names, they started signing the then talented future prospects. The likes of Marcos Asensio, Dani Ceballos, Theo Hernandez, and Alvaro Odriozola, all came to the team then with minimal cost.
However, they did spend more for the likes of Odegaard, Vinicius, Rodrygo or Camavinga. Also, in order to not let the future team become too young to fill the voids of Benzema, Modric, Kroos, Carvajal, Ronaldo, Casemiro, Ramos, Varane, and Marcelo, they brought in players of age group 23-27 with cheap investments.
You can say it by the signing of Militao and Mendy. They also promoted Valverde to the first team. To keep the balance of quality they signed the likes of Courtois, Alaba and Rudiger (latest).
Nevertheless, all the signings didn’t bring success. But Real definitely have got a well-orchestrated and organised project Perez and co. had in mind.
Hazard and Mbappe were supposed to be the leaders of this project. Hazard was Real’s first big-money signing in years, but he turned out to be a flop.
And then there is the case of Mbappe. It should be mentioned that to save money for Mbappe, Real Madrid didn’t spend a single penny for four transfer windows before last summer.
Now Mbappe rejecting Real Madrid is a political setback for Perez. Because it is not usual for a player to reject Real Madrid. So he will surely want to make a statement signing, actually a few if needed.
He also has the money. This is where things get tricky because everyone knows the amount he has and his desperation. Thus, some spending irrelevant to the project is highly like to happen. You can think of Barcelona after Neymar’s departure for reference.
That said, the smoothly going sporting project of the club could get jeopardised and Real Madrid might be back to square one.
