Which of the world’s best were almost ruined by their spell at the world’s most star-studded club?
Real Madrid have always made a point of buying the biggest players in the world every summer. The problem with this strategy is that plenty of top players don’t get a fair chance – 12 months after their arrival, the next big thing rolls into town, and they are soon sold on the cheap with their confidence broken.
Here are nine examples of that.
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9) Rafael van der Vaart
Van der Vaart’s performances in the year leading up to his move to Madrid lead to him being nominated for the Ballon d’Or two months after his arrival.
That chance was never to come round again after he was restricted to substitute appearances in his two years in Spain.
8) Jonathan Woodgate
England’s great defensive prospect, Woodgate never recovered from a shocking debut where he scored an own goal and a red card. He made nine appearances in three years at Madrid.
7) Kaka
Kaka came to Los Blancos as the best player in the world and returned to AC Milan a broken man after just 85 appearances over four years.
6) Arjen Robben
Robben has shown just how wrong Madrid were to let him go, developing into one of the best players in the world since he was cast-off by the hierarchy at the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu.
5) Wesley Sneijder
Another Ajax youngster who made his big move to Madrid too early, Sneijder was rotated with van der Vaart and eventually dismissed to Inter Milan when the club got their hands on new toys – in this case Cristiano Ronaldo, Xabi Alonso and Kaka.
4) Michael Owen
Owen arrived at Madrid with the potential to be a global superstar like David Beckham, but left a broken man. He scored 118 goals in the eight years before his arrival, and just 32 in the eight years after he left.
3) Klaas-Jan Huntelaar
Huntelaar arrived at Madrid as one of the hottest striker in Europe, after scoring 76 in 92 for Ajax.
While he has never stopped scoring, he also never quite made it at the very top level after being heavily neglected by Los Merengues in his time there.
2) Nicholas Anelka
Anelka was another player who arrived as a hot young prospect and barely played in his one season at Madrid, leaving for Liverpool after a year for a life of nomadic goalscoring and regular controversy.
1) Javier Saviola
Saviola showed great potential at FC Barcelona, scoring 60 goals in just three seasons. After falling out of favour at the Camp Nou he made the move to Madrid, and you can guess what happened to him there…