THE GALAXY OF STARS

In the summer of 2000, a construction magnate named Florentino Pérez did the unthinkable. He ran for the presidency of Real Madrid not on a platform of stability, but on a promise of audacity. He promised the sociós (members) that he would steal Luís Figo from arch-rivals FC Barcelona. If he failed, he would pay the membership fees of every single fan for a year. He won. He signed Figo for a world-record fee. And thus, the Galáctico Era was born.

The strategy was simple yet revolutionary: "Zidanes y Pavones." The club would recruit the absolute biggest superstar on the planet every single summer (the "Zidanes") while filling the rest of the squad with homegrown talent from the academy (the "Pavones"). This was not just a sporting strategy; it was an economic engine. Pérez understood before anyone else that football was becoming a global entertainment industry.

By signing Zinedine Zidane in 2001, Ronaldo Nazário in 2002, and David Beckham in 2003, Real Madrid didn't just win trophies; they conquered markets. The signing of Beckham, despite questions about his tactical fit, opened the Asian market to the club, generating revenue streams that dwarfed every other team in Europe. The shirt sales alone reportedly paid for the transfer fees.

However, the era was flawed. The sale of Claude Makélélé—the engine of the team—to Chelsea marked the beginning of the end for the first generation. As Zidane famously quipped: "Why put another layer of gold paint on the Bentley when you are losing the entire engine?" It was a lesson Florentino would learn the hard way, leading to his resignation in 2006, only to return three years later with an even more ambitious plan: Galácticos 2.0.