The Champions League, for better or for worse, tends to cause catharsis at Real Madrid.
The role in the European Cup is the thermometer with which the seasons of the white team are evaluated
.
La Orejona arranged campaigns in which the team finished off the hook in the fight for the League (the Eighth classified the team, which had finished fifth in the championship, for the next edition, when there were already four clubs per country) or the European eliminations precipitated events on the bench, such as the replacement on the bench in 2018-19 after the disaster against Ajax.
Madrid should never be left for dead in Europe.
Zidane's men have shown it this season, after a group stage in which they qualified in an agonizing way and some crosses in which the whites were never among the favorites in the pools.
They broke the forecasts and reached the semifinals, a level that other applicants such as Juventus or Bayern, current champions, did not reach
.
The final, on the other hand, has resisted for the third consecutive year.
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The elimination opens a change of cycle, not in the European domain that Madrid erected with four titles in five years, but in the white squad
.
The elimination has raised doubts about Zidane's future (fueled by himself) and the Stamford Bridge match has put the spotlight on some players in the squad.
It will not be a change from one day to the next, but it will be
a revolution in two or three years in which the bastions of the last Champions League (Ramos, Modric, Kroos, Benzema ...) will give way to the figures called to star in the successes of the next decade: Mbappé, Haaland, Alaba, Camavinga, Pogba if his signing is within reach ...
The future twilight of the old guard
Two years passed between the Milan final and the Lisbon final. Six players repeated ownership. At Stamford Bridge, almost three years after the Thirteenth, five players started who also started in the last three finals: Ramos, Casemiro, Kroos, Modric and Benzema. It would have been seven had it not been for the injuries to Carvajal and Varane.
Four of the pillars of Zidane's team are in their thirties. Except for Casemiro (who is 29), the other pieces of the backbone of the team that succumbed to Chelsea have turned 30. Modric and Ramos are 35; Benzema, 33 and Kroos, 31
.
The first three have been part of the Madrid champions of the last four European Cups in the club's record.
The German has been a key piece in the last three.
An exceptional generation that, apart from the European Cups, has given Madrid two Leagues, four Club World Cups, three European Super Cups, two Spanish Super Cups ...
Global analysis of the Real Madrid squad.
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The importance of the team is still capital.
This season the team has gone as far as gasoline has endured them in an extremely demanding context.
Except for Ramos, battered by injuries in the last four months, the rest are among the seven players who have exceeded 3,000 minutes played this season.
.
Modric and Ramos have entered this phase of renewing year after year (although in the case of the captain, if he does so in the end, he can sign for two seasons) and they are on their way to being the oldest outfield players to play a game with the jersey. Madridista for 50 years (Gento retired in 1971 with 37).
Benzema, on whose goals Madrid has depended this season more than ever and whose contract ends in 2022 (aged 34) and Kroos, who ends in 2023 (aged 33), will soon enter that phase.
Those to come
The renewal of the template has names.
This may be Mbappé's summer.
And more if Dortmund is still closed in band in their idea of not letting Haaland leave
.
The PSG forward is reluctant to renew his contract that expires in 2022 and the Parisian club must decide whether to risk going free then or to profit from a transfer this summer.
In the case of the Norwegian, the Rhenish entity insists that he stays one more year.
"Haaland will play for Dortmund next season. Erling fully agrees," former footballer and now yellow club manager Sebastian Kehl said recently.
But, with three days to go before the end of the Bundesliga, the Rhenish team still has not assured its presence in the Champions League (in fact, it is fifth, out of the positions that give access to the maximum continental competition) and not reach that objective can turn events around.
Comparison of Haaland and Mbappé.
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Along with the two great galactics called to star in the next decade of the planet football, other names appear.
Two of them, Alaba and Pogba, in their footballing prime: 28 years each.
The arrival of Alaba this summer seems to be closed in the absence of only the official announcement.
And the Frenchman, an old Madrid desire, ends his contract with United in 2022 and has not yet renewed.
An appealing option if your signing is within reach.
The other is Camavinga, an 18-year-old Rennes midfielder who arouses the interest of Madrid, if not other big clubs in Europe.
Contract ends in 2022, it will not renew and its price may be affordable this summer.
The economic fit, key
In a context of crisis due to the scourge of the pandemic, which has caused multimillion dollar losses to the big clubs against Real Madrid,
the economic fit of the new galacticos is an added problem
.
Mbappé, if he arrives by transfer, is called to become the most expensive signing in the history of the white club
.
An investment that will have to be added a generous salary.
Haaland won't come cheap either.
Madrid can get 250 million euros out of its sleeve this summer, between sales and savings in salaries of players such as Varane, Odriozola, Isco, Mariano, Marcelo, Jovic or Ceballos.
Without going any further, last summer it raised 88 million euros only with the sales of Achraf, Reguilón and Óscar Rodríguez.
The gradual exits of players like Bale, Ramos or Modric will ease the salary mass. And the new Bernabéu will be a mine
. When it is finished at the end of 2022 or the beginning of 2023, the club's forecast is that the operation of the stadium will contribute an extra 200 million euros per year to the white coffers. Foundations to build the new Madrid.
