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Madrid president Florentino Perez has overseen two periods in the club’s history, having served at the helm between 2000-06 before returning in 2009.<\/p>\n
During his first stint, he aggressively pursued the signatures of the world’s biggest stars, or ‘Galacticos’.<\/p>\n
In 2000, Portuguese forward Luis Figo became the world’s most expensive footballer when he quit Barcelona to join their fierce rivals Madrid<\/a> for \u00a337m. <\/p>\n The following summer, Los Blancos set a new transfer world record when they signed Zidane<\/a> from Juventus for \u00a345.8m. <\/p>\n In the summer of 2002, Madrid paid \u00a328.5m to acquire Brazilian World Cup winner Ronaldo<\/a> from the Italian side and in 2003, David Beckham joined<\/a> from Manchester United for \u00a324.5m.<\/p>\n However, Madrid only won one Champions League and two La Liga trophies between 2000-06.<\/p>\n Calderon, who succeeded Perez, talks about the flaws in his predecessor’s strategy, saying, “work always beats talent when talent doesn’t work”.<\/p>\n During the 77-year-old’s second term, he has focused more on buying young talents.<\/p>\n Brazilian winger Vinicius Jr signed for \u00a338.7m<\/a> in 2018, aged 18 and has become arguably the team’s best player.<\/p>\n