And the scales tip yet again...

It's obvious, but perhaps it needs to be stated from time to time, and Xavi, the Barcelona and Spain midfielder put it succinctly the other day when he said that "Barça and Real are like a set of scales, when things go well for one, they go badly for the other, and viceversa".

Just think back six months: Real Madrid were running rampant in a league championship they eventually won with an eighteen-point lead over Barcelona. When the Catalan club visited the capital, Real had already won the title and the Barcelona players had to do the traditional pasillo.

Key players like Eto'o were accused of forcing a yellow card in their previous game so they wouldn't have to face the humiliation in Madrid. Barcelona went on to lose the game 4-1. Club president Joan Laporta had to face a motion of confidence, which he narrowly defeated.

Fast forward to the last few weeks and you can see the scales have truly tipped. After six wins on the trot in September, Real Madrid have lost both Champions League ties against Juventus, been dumped out of the Copa del Rey by a third division side, and have managed just three wins in their last six league games, conceding ten goals in the process.

Conversely, Barcelona are riding high, with a five-point lead at the top of the standings, and a truly breathtaking start to the championship. They have scored thirty-six goals in eleven games and Eto'o is the current pichichi with thirteen. Confidence is clearly with the men in red & blue as the two sides look to their first meeting of the season in mid-December.

It's always been thus, but the roots of this particular debacle can clearly be traced to the disastrous way Real Madrid managed their summer transfer campaign. Having won the league early, and being in the enviable position of planning for the coming season with several months in their back pocket, they decided to base their entire strategy around the signing of one Cristiano Ronaldo (remember him?).

Ramón Calderón has always felt the long shadow of his predecessor, Florentino Pérez, and his failure to match the galáctico-signing antics of the Florentino years has always weighed heavily on this much-criticised president. Only yesterday, he hit out at Florentino's being photographed at a charity match organised by Zinedine Zidane: "It's sad. I would have loved to have seen that photo when we won two league titles and the supercopa. It illustrates that badly kept secret that he has spent the past two-and-a-half years obstructing and trying to discredit the Real Madrid board. He only thinks of his own personal gain."

Calderón must have reasoned that the only way to make people forget about Florentino was to secure the services of one of the most sought-after players in the world. Well, we all remember what happened, which is that not only did Real Madrid not manage to sign the tricky Portuguese winger, but they also managed to enrage their most creative player (Robinho) to such an extent that he upped sticks and left them for Manchester City.

In all of this, Mijatovic has aided and abetted his boss, and Schuster claims to have been a mere spectator. However, while he may have a strong case to claim he has been handed an unbalanced squad, and taking into account a number of injuries in key positions, Schuster still cannot expect to be seen as purely innocent.

There is no excuse for conceding six goals and being eliminated from the cup by a third division side, not with this squad. There is no excuse for claiming he has "no idea" why his side is letting in a record number of goals.

We knew what we were getting when Schuster was signed. He's always been temperamental and difficult with the media, but when you barely get involved in a game you're losing and then go AWOL for several days without explaining what your strategy is to get the team out of the mess it's in, then, frankly, it's all downhill from there.

So the recent vote of confidence in the coach from the Real Madrid board is as convincing as Mijatovic's press conference to announce it. Fielding a question about what would happen if Real lost again this weekend at home to Recreativo, he avoided saying that the result was not linked to Schuster staying at the club: "I can't be certain as to what would happen. We would have no problem in taking difficult decisions if we have to, but we won't rush into them".

We just need to keep watching to see whether the scales have any further to tip before they start heading back the other way...

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Calderón claims Florentino abandoned Real Madrid

Motormouth Real Madrid president Ramón Calderón took advantage of an interview on the financial TV channel Intereconomía Televisión to announce the club's general assembly will be on December 7th and to criticise former president Florentino Pérez for leaving the club.

"He is the only president in the history of the club who left half way through a season. The only one to abandon the club, leading to four presidents in the space of six months. The only president who spent three years without winning a trophy. It would be very hard for him to have to explain all that", Calderón said, alluding to the rumours that suggest Florentino may stand at the next presidential elections, which will take place by 2010.

Calderón added that Florentino left not through illness or other problems, but "because the team wasn't winning. It would be very hard for me to have to say that face-to-face to a person whom I helped so much to become president. I am proud of having helped him, but he hasn't behaved well towards me".

He once again showed his anger at recent accusations that he was using the club's money for personal purposes. "A Real Madrid president cannot spend every single day denying whatever the press decides to publish, but this time they went too far. They manipulated information to say I'm a thief, and attacking the club's honour. I have not spent 1000, or even 600 euros of the club's money. I've worked 30 years as a lawyer with some success and I've managed to pay off most of my mortgage".

Commenting on the radio journalists who first published the reports on his show, he added "I would not meet Abellán (who published the reports on his radio show) face to face because I prefer to spend my time with human beings. Based on what I hear him say, he cannot do what he does and have a human heart. It's impossible for anyone to have that much evil inside them, that much bile to pour on me".

The Real Madrid president also came out in defence of coach Bernd Schuster, who has been the target of recent criticism by the media for his sometimes erratic behaviour at press conferences. "He is a great guy, but it's not easy to have to face 30 or 40 journalists every day. It would be perfect if he was really friendly with the pres, but I'd rather have a coach who does his job properly".

Calderón could not help weighing in once again into the recent spat with Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson, with some unnecessary ribbing at the Scotman's expense. "He's a little bit envious of Real Madrid's nine European Cups. He realises that he won't have time to reach that figure. When I said he was a bit senile it was a bit of a joke to try to show how unimportant the words of a man who looks like he is jealous of a great club with the kind of success he hasn't had"

He was a lot kinder in his words towards rival club Barcelona. "When they play well I enjoy it like any other football fan. Envy is a ridiculous feeling; you have to admire those who do their job well".

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Calderón accused of living off the club

How much more can Ramón Calderón take before he decides that enough is enough and he packs his bags? It's not been an easy few days for the president of Real Madrid, continuously dogged by issues that have nothing to do with the team's sporting results.

Last week he had to contend with the announcement by Juan Villalonga that he would seek the presidency of the club at the next election, scheduled to take place by 2010. You may remember this same Villalonga was looking to poach Calderón's right-hand man José Ángel Sánchez back in July to head his proposed take-over at Valencia.

After Villalonga's attempt fell through just ten days later, nobody could predict that the man who used to run Spain's Telefónica before having to leave over accusations of insider trading would next try to take over an even bigger football club. Over at La Liga Loca there's an excellent review of the background to this story.

There followed then rumours that Florentino Pérez, the architect of the galácticos was seriously considering returning to the post he voluntarily resigned from in February 2006.

None of this should perhaps worry Calderón too much. After all, a lot can happen in two years, and the club has had sporting success with two consecutive league championships. However, it is the president's personal financial affairs that are now taking centre stage.

On Wednesday, business newspaper Negocio published an article detailing Calderón's income and tax statements since 2004. Without specifying how these details were obtained, the surprising news is that Calderón has declared no income and paid no tax between 2004 and 2007, and yet somehow managed to buy a flat in the centre of Madrid valued at some 800,000 euros.

This was followed that same next evening in José Antonio Abellán's personal crusade against the Real Madrid president in his radio programme El Tirachinas. Abellán claims that Calderón is charging personal expenses using two club credit cards for items as varied as cups of coffee, fuel for his car, rounds of golf and visits to health spas. He even published copies of these card statements on the radio station's website, blanking out some of the amounts. Abellán extended his accusations to the rest of the club's board members, saying Calderón was merely the figurehead.

In my opinion, the "documents" don't look very official and could have been knocked up very quickly. Also, some of the expenses are in locations that Calderón is known to have visited with the team during the preseason in Irdning and the Algarve. However, the allegations are extremely serious and have been echoed widely in the Spanish press.

Whether they can be justified as legitimate business expenses will presumably be addressed by Calderón himself at a press conference tonight at 19:00 local time (18:00 GMT).

Update: At his press conference, Calderón blasted his accusers, saying they had obtained information illegally and supplemented it with lies.

"Sadly I have to stand here before you to make a formal declaration to answer these very serious accusations, which this morning I have put in the hands of they police so they can initiate the relevant investigation."

"Most of the items mentioned were of my daughter Leticia and the rest are false. None of those items has been paid by Real Madrid. The situation is so serious and so brutally damaging to my prestige and the honour of Real Madrid that I could not remain silent."

He then went on to present documentary evidence from the banks to the effect that those credit cards had not been used by him for any personal motive and that most of the transactions that were published by the various media were from a debit account in the name of his daughter. He also showed copies of his tax statements for the past 4 years, in reply to the article from Negocio about his apparent lack of income.

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Bye Bye Brazil, Hello Holland

Real Madrid's love affair with Brazilian footballers seems to be slowly coming to an end. At its height, back in Florentino Pérez's last season as club president, the squad boasted five Brazilians in its ranks: Roberto Carlos, Cicinho, Baptista, Robinho and Ronaldo. As of today, with the sale of Julio Baptista to Roma for €12 million, this number now stands at two: Robinho and Marcelo. If you listen to the sports press, and Robinho does end up in Phil Scolari's Chelsea, it could soon be just one.

There could be two factors at play in this changing trend: the most plausible one is that, Marcelo aside, all of the other Brazilian players were signed before Ramón Calderón's ascent to power at Real Madrid. And, apart from Roberto Carlos, they were all signed in Florentino Pérez's era. Calderón has not bothered to hide his dislike for his previous boss and has even gone so far as to accuse him of meddling in the affairs of the club following his resignation. He may be thinking of putting his own stamp on the squad by getting rid of those who arrived under Florentino. The second possible factor is the growing perception at Real Madrid of Brazilians as "problematic". In other words, a fondness for the party life and complaints when not selected in the starting 11.

It is no secret that Robinho is unsettled at the club. Marca goes so far as to suggest that he has told Calderón in person that he wants to leave, although the president has so far refused to entertain any offers from Chelsea. This contrasts interestingly with some of his statements during the Cristiano Ronaldo saga to the effect that he would never keep anyone at the club who was unhappy there.

The focus at the club, quite possibly heavily influenced by Bernd Schuster, has now shifted towards players perceived to be more solid, more reliable. This has resulted in an unprecedented number of Dutch players being signed. Van Nistelrooy was signed in 2006 (under Capello), followed by Robben, Sneijder and Drenthe last summer. The recent addition of Van der Vaart to the squad brings the total number up to five. The only nationality with a larger representation is, obviously, Spanish.

The Dutchmen have all, so far, integrated well at the club, and there are no obvious cliques being formed. Without generalising about national traits (a futile exercise, in any case), there is a feeling that these signings are contributing to building a more compact, resilient squad. More of a team than a bunch of talented individuals, in other words. And that can only be a good thing in the long run.

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Real's most valuable asset

Often, when looking at a club's assets, one tends to concentrate on the players, the ground, sometimes on the manager and technical staff. Rarely do we look closely at those people who actually run the club. And in Real's case that is not president Ramón Calderón.

Four years ago, when Florentino Pérez was still president of Real Madrid and pursuing his galáctico policy, the club's then director of marketing, José Ángel Sánchez, realised that he could get a 20-fold return on his investment by signing David Beckham from Manchester United. It has been this man's vision that has put Real Madrid top of the Forbes list of football clubs by annual revenue. Calderón has not only kept Sánchez in charge of marketing and branding at the club, he has given him additional responsibilities and the catch-all title of general executive director. Everyone reports to him, from marketing to finance, even the technical area when it comes to player transfers and contracts.

Real Madrid may be about to lose this man.

Valencia's major shareholder, Juan Soler, today agreed to hand over the running of the club to Juan Villalonga, former chairman of Telefónica, Spain's main telecom operator. This is seen as Soler's last chance to halt the financial decline his club has seen over the past few years. Villalonga knows Sánchez from his time at Telefónica, but what must really have impressed him is his work at building the Real Madrid brand over the last few years and now it looks like he has convinced him to repeat the performance at Valencia (as of yesterday evening, Real Madrid were refusing to make a statement on the matter).

In a recent lecture on marketing in football, Sánchez argued that turning a football club into a brand is no different from any other product: the marketing plan needs to recognise the brand's values, its differentiating factors, and it must know its target audience to understand the potential demand. Sponsorship deals must evolve from simple advertising to a partnership between both parties. All these strategies serve to turn the club into a growing brand with significant financial returns over and above sporting success.

Losing Sánchez at this point may cost Real Madrid far more in the long term than the sale or purchase of any player, irrespective of their value in the marketplace.

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What might have been

This weekend's Sunday Telegraph has an interview with Carlos Queiroz, in which he reminisces about his year in charge at Real Madrid in between stints as assistant coach to Alex Ferguson at Manchester United. In the wake of the usual end-of-season transfer speculation which has Real considering whether to make an offer of up to £100 million to United for Cristiano Ronaldo's services, Queiroz reveals that his young countryman was at the top of his wishlist when he made the move to the Bernabéu nearly five years ago. Given that United snapped him up soon afterwards for a "measly" £12 million (also indirectly through Queiroz), Real Madrid can only wonder what might have been.

Earlier this week, French sports daily L'Equipe reported that Mijatovic had recently been in the UK to talk to Queiroz about Cristiano. The Real Madrid sports director reportedly put 120 million euros on the table to make him the player to spearhead Real's assault on the Champions League. Queiroz is said to have retorted that "at that price, the striker will be with United next season", which, if the quote is accurate, suggests there is room for negotiation.

Of course, the fact that Cristiano Ronaldo has matured into the kind of player everybody wants must owe something to the way Alex Ferguson runs his Manchester United squads. The relative freedom from internal politics and his unchallenged status inside the club means that no player is more important than the squad and internal cliques and dissension are generally quashed before they can take hold. Whether he could have flourished in that way at Real Madrid is something we'll never know.

Ironically, it was Ferguson's intransigence in this regard that eventually led to media maelstrom David Beckham joining the rank of the galácticos at the same time as Queiroz. However, as Queiroz recalls, the seeds of destruction that resulted in three years without a trophy, including his one season at the club (the Spanish Supercup does not count) had already been sown. Real's president, Florentino Pérez, decided that "he knew something about football" and commanded that Makélélé be sold to Chelsea. This was "a criminal error, the president's worst decision. Makélélé wanted to stay. He told me and he told [Jorge] Valdano (then the club's general manager). But, in the president's mind, releasing Makélélé vacated a position in which David Beckham could play. He was worried that, with Makélélé in the team, Beckham would be blocked out. But of course we could have had both."

Queiroz also analyses Real's Zidanes y Pavones strategy: "the policy was to surround the galácticos with players from the academy, the cantera, as much as possible. It was a great idea and could have worked - except that the cantera could not deliver its requirements. The young players were not there. On top of that, the club had let some of the best go the year before - like Samuel Eto'o. He was a Real Madrid player before he went to Barcelona and emerged as world-class. When the season started, I gave an interview to Marca and said that, although it was true Real Madrid was a Ferrari, you could not win a race if the car had no wheels. Sad to say, I was proved right."

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Diarra doomed?

Analysing Real's defeat to Almería on Saturday, Phil Ball makes an interesting statement about why Mahamadou Diarra may not have a long and illustrious career at the Bernabéu. He draws a parallel with Claude Makélélé, a player who performed a very similar role, but was unloved by the Madrid faithful because of his lack of skill in playing the ball forward creatively, while overlooking his obvious qualities as a defensive midfielder.

Almería's midfielders turned the tables on the Mali captain by putting intense pressure on him every time he had the ball, forcing him to give it away time and again. This, Phil Ball argues, is why he will eventually be let go in favour of someone like Gago, less able defensively, but much more comfortable with his passing skills.

I wonder how likely it is that history will repeat itself. The departure of Makélélé in 2003 coincided with a downturn in Real's galáctico fortunes, and they did not manage to win a trophy again until the league championship last year. Some have argued that the lack of an effective defensive midfielder, a "destructive" rather than a "constructive" player, was a major contributing factor, and that Real Madrid really did miss Makélélé.

Florentino Pérez's inelegant parting shot to a player who then went on to form a core part of Mourinho's Chelsea may have come back to haunt him: "He wasn't a header of the ball and he rarely passed the ball more than three metres. Younger players will arrive who will cause Makélélé to be forgotten.". There's a place in the squad for a player of Diarra's characteristics. Let's hope Schuster has the wisdom to see it.

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The dangerous legacy of attacking football

A fascinating tactical analysis in today's El País uncovers some of the historical reasons for Real's defensive woes, typified in recent games by the squad's inability to maintain possession. This is aggravated by the fact that the midfielders do not push back to help defend and the central defenders stay too close to Casillas's goal. The Real Madrid technical team is trying to rectify the situation but "it is not easy because this squad is accustomed to have possession. When a team is constructed for attack, the players get out of the habit of also performing defensive duties."

Back in 1999, the then Real Madrid captain and central defender, Fernando Hierro (confirmed on Tuesday as the new sporting director of the Spanish FA and officially presented earlier today), perhaps conscious of the fact that his speed was not one of his best attributes, argued with the defensive midfielder of the day, Fernando Redondo, about how far back the central defenders should stay. With the arrival of Florentino's era and the emphasis on attacking galáctico signings, Hierro found an ally in Iván Helguera (not a particularly fast footballer either), who argued that "with so many players attacking, you have to be very coordinated at the back to push forward. If you leave too much space behind you, they can hurt you on the counter."

That worked fine when Real with Zidane owned the midfield and kept control of the ball, but three trophyless years brought Capello back to the Bernabéu and a renewed rigour to the squad's defensive duties. This was mostly accomplished by keeping defenders and midfielders in the Real half waiting for the opportunity to counter-attack. This also explains why Real Madrid had a much worse home than away record, given the fans' expectations when playing at the Bernabéu.

The new manager now finds that he has a problem. He wants to be able to play attacking football, but still be solid in defence. This poses problems for the midfield, who have far too much ground to cover, as the defenders play too close to Casillas. Diarra complains that "The space between defenders and midfielders is too great. When we lose the ball it is very hard to get it back."

Schuster's challenge is to convince his defenders that they can play further forward and not put additional pressure on Casillas to perform his usual heroics. Barcelona, who have been playing the same way for five years, have far better defensive statistics: Touré steals a ball every 12 minutes, compared with 18 minutes for Diarra. Similarly, Iniesta has better numbers than Guti, and Xavi is far more effective defensively than Sneijder. The transition won't be easy, if it happens at all, but it may go some way to explain the curse of the central defender which has plagued Real Madrid for years.

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Surviving a slogan

Back in October 2001, Real Madrid coach Vicente del Bosque was in trouble. After 6 league games, the team had notched up a miserly 5 points and was languishing in 14th spot in the table. Early days yet, but this was Florentino's Real Madrid, who had just that summer signed the world's most expensive player, Zinedine Zidane, from Juventus for a mind-boggling 75 million euros. Athletic Bilbao were visiting the Bernabéu and a number of the top players - Roberto Carlos, Zidane, Makélélé (remember him?), Figo - were away on international duty.

Three players from the cantera, the youth team, made their debuts that day: Raúl Bravo started in Roberto Carlos's left wing, Valdo came on for Geremi just before half time, and Pavón substituted Bravo himself on 71 minutes. The final score was 2-0 to Real Madrid with goals from Raúl and Solari (remember him?). The youngsters impressed both the coach and the faithful so much that both they and a number of their colleagues (Borja, Rubén, Miñambres, Portillo) made several appearances for the club in that Champions League-winning season. Florentino Pérez then coined the now-infamous term Zidanes y Pavones to describe the club's transfer policy.

Del Bosque was uniquely placed to take advantage of the "Pavones"; after all, he had been involved with the youth teams at Real Madrid for a number of years and had seen a lot of the players grow up and develop. When his contract was not renewed after he won the league in 2003, none of the canteranos, other than Pavón himself, made any kind of lasting impression on the first team. Subsequent managers overlooked them in favour of new galáctico signings.

As an aside, the Zidanes y Pavones policy began to show its flaws at that point: it did not give the squad strength in depth because not enough players were being bought or coming up through the ranks to "do the dirty work" that the starry galacticos couldn't or, in some cases, wouldn't. In his Guardian blog, Rob Smyth traces it all to the departure of Claude Makélélé to Chelsea and "replacing" him with David Beckham. It is perhaps not the only reason for the team's decline, but it's a compelling one nonetheless.

For Pavón, however, the departure of Florentino also meant the end of his playing days at Real Madrid. He did not play a single minute in the whole of the 2005-2006 league championship under Capello, and had only a couple of run-outs in the Cup. Capello preferred to use Cannavaro, the rehabilitated Helguera, Sergio Ramos, Miguel Torres, and even Raúl Bravo as central defenders. While not necessarily prejudiced against cantera players (after all, Torres was a starter for nearly half of the games last season), Pavón just did not cut the mustard with Capello.

His contract expired on June 30th and yesterday, Real Zaragoza announced that he had decided to join them as a free agent for the next four seasons. He will pair up in the centre of defence with Zaragoza's other recent surprise signing, Roberto Ayala, who left Valencia to join Villareal, and, 16 days later, bought out his contract and signed for Zaragoza.

Real Madrid has now left that fateful Zidanes y Pavones slogan behind. Let's hope that its less illustrious component can do the same and make a new name for himself. Good luck, Paco

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The long arm of Florentino...

Niccolò Machiavelli would have found much to illuminate his examples on how to acquire and retain power in The Prince by watching the intriguing goings-on at Real Madrid and the fight for control of its presidency.

On the face of it, this coming Sunday's Annual General Meeting should be a chance for Ramón Calderón to show off the new TV contract and to talk about potential new signings for the winter transfer window (Marcelo's already in the bag).

This should enable him to reform the club's statutes to get rid of the postal vote in future presidential elections, which has so far haunted the legitimacy of his position.

But there are a number of players behind the scenes hoping to derail the meeting and force new elections to be called before the end of the season. While Villar Mir is still hoping to have the postal vote declared valid, which he believes will give him enough votes to be elected president, Don Balón reports this week that former president Florentino Pérez has allegedly repented from his decision to resign last February and is looking to see whether he has the support to make a comeback.

This, from a man who said "if it weren't my responsibility I wouldn't have resigned and I don't come back from where I've left". Although this was also the man who famously said "never, never, never" when asked whether he had any plans to bring David Beckham to Real Madrid.

According to Don Balón, Florentino has commissioned a series of telephone polls of Real Madrid members to see whether they would like to see him back at the helm. And he's primed a number of people to ask awkward questions at Sunday's meeting in the hopes of forcing Calderón to acknowledge he is not in control of the club and to call for an election.

The landscape at Real Madrid, in terms of management style, has changed greatly with the arrival of Calderón and Capello. Love it or hate it, it's what the fans wanted: no interference with the manager and results at the expense of everything else, after three years of winning nothing. Former Real Madrid sports director, Arrigo Sacchi, today launched an attack on the way things were run under Florentino: "Now only those who are playing and training well are starting. When I was there I had the feeling that certain players had to play at all costs, whether they were in form or not and that was not good. Now they are letting the manager do his job".

Sunday's meeting is only the start, but it promises to be an interesting battle for control...

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