HERE'S YOUR ANSWER OTTO

This guy (Mr. Prats) may be answering your question already.

The first paragraph he writes that Barça have grown, and continue growing. They enjoy the perfect symbiosis from their reknowned stars, youth system players, and the architect of it all Rijkaard.

In the second paragraph Prats basically says that Real Madrid, and Florentino Pérez specifically contributed to Barça's rise to the top while Madrid sank. Florentino shunned Ronaldinho and Eto'o in order to sign Beckham. He describes this as a complete fiasco for Real Madrid.

The last paragraph he simply articulates how Ronaldinho became football's world star, Eto'o's a great candidate for Ballon d'Or, while Deco dreams of his third Champions League trophy playing for Barça. All of this happening at Barça while Beckham became a bench warmer, is not considered for England by the new coach etc.

Need I remind everyone again that Real Madrid were doomed the day Pérez signed Beckham, and just to sell T-shirts.

http://www.sport.es/default.asp?idpublicacio_PK=44&idnoticia_PK=340994&idseccio_PK=848

I think that's an oversimplification Puro.

RM's problem was not Beckham, it was the fact that they created a super-powerful clique of players, who all started to get old at the same time; so they couldn't produce on the pitch, but they were effectively undroppable.

Beckham was merely a symptom of this. And in purely financial terms he was and remains a huge success for them.

@ puro

funny thing is that whilst Capello is pushing Golden Balls out of the team in order to win the odd match, Real seem to be happy to extend his contract by two years

obviously , they still have quite a few shirts stacked away in various Madrid warehouses

the club just does not seem to learn

pity

Its not Beckhams fault - blame Carlos, Helguera, Ronaldo, Raul, Figo etc.... not Beckham though - he was one of their best players the past two seasons!

I used to say that, but the reality is if barca bought becks and madrid ronaldinho, the two clubs would be in a diff situation right now

Tweedledum wrote:Its not Beckhams fault - blame Carlos, Helguera, Ronaldo, Raul, Figo etc.... not Beckham though - he was one of their best players the past two seasons!

No he wasn't. He has been the same as all the others. Flashes of brilliance here and there, complete waist of space the majority of the time.
Everyone knows why Beckham was bought. Marketing.
Not is fault tough. Bad coaches, some hoeful sport politics (Makelele sale, the "Galacticos" policy,etc,etc) all has contributed for Real's decline

It will take them some time to get back in shape

Don't forget the "Pavones" policy as well.

The club you all seem to be criticizing is also the same club that won 3 champions leagues in the last 8 years.

Right now back to praising the club thats won 2 in 107 years ...

They are talking about current events mate.

Puting the blame on Beckham is as stupid as it is saying RM are shit cos Raul is playing.

Florentino done some stupid things no doubt but he also done great things for the club. Maybe if we had a world class manager coaching all those world class stars we wouldnt have been so shit.

Its like having a ferrari and letting Sato drive it, you know he`s gonna kill himself or someone else.

This is such an old bit.

La Saeta Rubia wrote:Puting the blame on Beckham is as stupid as it is saying RM are shit cos Raul is playing.

Florentino done some stupid things no doubt but he also done great things for the club. Maybe if we had a world class manager coaching all those world class stars we wouldnt have been so shit.

Its like having a ferrari and letting Sato drive it, you know he`s gonna kill himself or someone else.

Real's problem has been the president, same as Inter, same as Newcastle etc. His policy of buying big stars worked at first because there was a team to put them in, afterwards the team disappeared and they were left with a group of stars.

Also there's something wrong with having a goalkeeper as your best player, and still they are leaking goals. Note also that Beckham is not a defender, so carries a limited amount of responsibility here. He was bought (apart from the merchandising) for free-kicks, supplying crosses etc, so if he has done that surely he is one of the few successes of the last few years.

The changing of the managers is also a very valid point, but the manager should be given a budget and allowed to choose his own players.

The last thing is that players should not only be judged on their natural talent but on how much they show themselves when they need to, e.g. when their team is losing. Beckham seems to at least try harder and run more, but there have been plenty at real who didn't the last 2 years. Barcelona are not where they are now because of dinho's talent over beckham's. The whole Barcelona team is very strong, works well together etc. If dinho was at Real they would still be in the same mess and probably even worse defensively, and they wouldn't have dinho tracking back to help out.