When the era of the Galacticos begun

The Florentino Perez era at Real Madrid got off to a fine start with the club claiming their 28th Liga title in 2000-2001.

The new club president delivered on his pre-election promise to sign Luis Figo from arch-rivals Barcelona and also orchestrated the sale of the club’s training ground, which funded the ambitious recruitment drive of transfer windows to come.

This set the tone for the rest of the season and after taking top spot on Matchday 14, Los Blancos would never look back.

CHANGES

The story of summer 2000 starts and ends with Figo. Madrid met his €62m release clause to bring the Portuguese winger from Catalonia to the capital. This cut the rivalry between the two clubs to one of its deepest points. Los Blancos also decimated another one of their league rivals with another crucial signing, bringing in Claude Makelele from Celta Vigo with relatively little fanfare – a fitting tone for his career.

Under new boss Lorenzo Serra Ferrer, Barcelona didn’t waste time, lining up Marc Overmars from Arsenal to replace Figo, while Gerard also made a big-money switch to Camp Nou from Valencia. Meanwhile, Deportivo pulled off two moves that shaped their identity at the turn of the century, adding Juan Carlos Valeron and Diego Tristan to their ranks.

Las Palmas, Villarreal and Osasuna joined the top flight, with Real Betis, Atletico Madrid and Sevilla sinking to the Segunda.

SUMMARY

From the moment the fixture list was released, everyone circled October 21 – the first Clasico of the season and Figo’s return to Camp Nou. Barcelona fans had their first encounter with their self-proclaimed Judas. Even by Clasico standards, the hostility in Camp Nou that day was legendary, with whiskey bottles among the missiles rained down from the stands. It was ugly but it worked, with Barcelona winning 2-0 and Perez himself admitting that the crowd had got inside their heads.

But in the long run, it didn’t matter. Madrid would recover their poise soon after, reeling off a…

Source link : https://www.footballcritic.com/season-reviews/when-the-era-of-the-galacticos-begun-la-liga-in-2000-01/85

Author : [email protected] (Dan Edwards)

Publish date : 2024-07-22 10:00:00

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