People on our podcast (Forza Futbol where have you been?) have asked what my allegiances are in La Liga, whether I support one or the other super powers in Spain, and I have constantly said that while I like Real Madrid I am not a Madridista. I even confuse myself sometimes. The club buy Fernando Gago or Robinho who bring me into the fold, as ex- Boca and Santos players, then they confuse me (and themselves I guess) by buying Higuain or Ruud Van Nistelrooy, two players despite their long or short track records, that I have never warmed to. Might it be their River Plate or Manchester United connections? Either way, the Merengues brought in Don Fabio Capello, he who lifted a middle finger at my beloved AS Roma to go to Juve despite his promises never to go there.
And despite that, I thought it was an inspired hire for Madrid.
Here was a team that had cliques ripping the dressing room apart, a caste system that excluded Spanish players from foreign players, Brazilians from English players, and at the bottom were cantera players that struggled mightily to be accepted into the first team. The expectations of the supporters, the directors, even the backroom staff, were completely out of sync with the talent on the pitch and how it was blending together. It was not a surprise that the Fiorentino Perez era ended when it did.
The Calderon era heralded some interesting signings. He came in with the same old empty promises, a Kaka signing here or Cristiano Ronaldo, Arjen Robben or Cesc Fabregas later on, but his most interesting signing was the Italian gypsy who left the Juventus gravy train before it caromed over the Calciopoli abyss. Here was a manager that had the ego and the personality to take on, head-on, the complacency that settled in after Del Bosque was fired (some say even before). He clashed with Ronaldo, o Fenomeno, he benched SIr David Beckham, and he flipped off the Madridistas that had booed him mercilessy for his lack of imagination, his lack of style, and frankly his lack of being like anyone else that had come before. Even himself from a previous incarnation, I guess.
They had it coming. That finger was commented on, it was debated and ultimately it led to the events today, that despite winning the league for the first time in 4 years, eclipsed by Valencia and Barcelona respectively, Capello’s handlers at the club decided that he had been too much his own man to continue paying him to fix the errors that had stymied the club for so long.
The future holds much of what brought Madrid to this point. They talk about another wave of Galacticos, Tevez or Kaka or Cristiano Ronaldo, they string their cantera along by loaning them to an Osasuna or a Mallorca or a Real Sociedad, and most importantly just as they’re turning the corner and devising a way out of the woods that they had lost themselves into, they will hire another yes man, a Real Madrid legend but a man that owes his career to los blancos and they will step back into the woods, ignorant of what they have done this year.
