In the early hours of May 16, 2002, Florentino Perez halted Real Madrid’s Champions League celebration with a bold pronouncement.
“This won’t stop here,” the club president declared, just hours after Zinedine Zidane had struck a thunderous volley to beat Bayer Leverkusen in Glasgow. “We will win La Decima—a 10th European Cup—and la Undecima—an 11th—and many more.”
At the time no one doubted him. Madrid had just conquered the continent with a squad including Fernando Hierro, Claude Makelele, Luis Figo, Raul and, of course Zidane—already a two-time FIFA World Player of the Year. Following the World Cup, Ronaldo would arrive in the Spanish capital from Inter Milan, and less than a year later David Beckham came from Manchester United.
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“I have no doubt,” added Perez, “that 98 years from now we will be called the greatest [team] of the 21st [Century].”
His boast may have actually been a curse, because for the next 11 years the club most associated with the European Cup wouldn’t even makes its final. And after winning La Liga in the spring of 2003 Madrid would finish twice in the Spanish league on two occasions and fourth on another before finally regaining the title in 2007.
By then Perez had resigned—his Galacticos philosophy having never realized its potential. But the obsession of La Decima remained, even if only in whispers, as the presidency of Ramon Calderon replaced his predecessor’s grand strategy with something more pragmatic.
Presidents and vast ambition: They are as much a part of Real Madrid’s modern legacy as the players who have worn the white strip since a bizarre, government intervention accidentally transformed the club from small-time outfit with just two titles to its name into Europe’s record champions.
In 1943, following a violent encounter with rivals Barcelona, Madrid president Antonio Santus Peralba and his Catalan counterpart were ordered to quit their posts by the Franco government. Elected to replace Peralba was a 48-year-old Santiago Bernabeu, who had fought for the Nationalists during the Spanish Civil War as part of the famed Blue Division.
Bernabeu’s impact at Madrid wasn’t immediate, but it was certainly long-lasting. After 11 years of modernizing the club’s infrastructure and building the iconic stadium that would one day bear his name, he set about signing some of the biggest names in world football for an assault on the Primera Division and, in 1955, the newly-struck European Cup.
Alberto Di Stefano, Francisco Gento, Miguel Munoz, Raymond Kopa, Jose Santamaria and Ferenc Puskas were among the superstars that helped deliver five successive continental titles between 1956 and 1960, and in 1966 (with Munoz now coaching) Madrid claimed a sixth trophy.
They didn’t win another until Predrag Mijatovic and the 1997-98 team triumphed over Juventus in Amsterdam, but two years later they had a eighth championship after Raul put the finishing touches on a 3-0 win over Valencia at Stade de France.
Both victories came during the presidency of Lorenzo Sanz, but less than two months after the second he lost his bid for re-election to Perez, whose promise to wrench Luis Figo from Barcelona earned him nearly 95 percent of the vote.
And so began the era of the Galacticos, which, upon Perez’ return as president in 2009 and the big-money acquisitions of Cristiano Ronaldo and Kaka, became the nuevo-Galacticos.
Perez, now in his 11th year in the job, sees himself as the modern Bernabeu. During his first term as president he invested over €100 million in upgrades to his forebear’s stadium, and as recently as October he announced a further €400 million outlay designated for, among other improvements, a retractable roof.
But the 67-year-old’s reputation has always been, and remains, staked on a willingness to pay huge fees for the best players in the sport. Under his watch Madrid have broken the world transfer record five straight times, most recently last September when they paid €100 million for Tottenham attacker Gareth Bale.
They made no secret of why they had gone to such extent to acquire the Welshman, and Bale, himself, admitted as much in the days following his move.
“I have already learned how to say ‘La Decima’,” he told reporters before even making his debut. Added Cristiano Ronaldo during this season’s run to the Champions League final: “La Decima has become an obsession.”
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It has also become the buzzword of the Perez era—a sort of word-culture the president, like any corporate executive, has taught his employees to embrace in order to improve results.
And now, with only a win over local rivals Atletico Madrid standing between his club and the realization of his dream—the conquest of his mania—Perez can surely sense how close he is to joining Bernabeu in the pantheon of Madrid sovereigns.
Of course, he’s also just a loss removed from seeing his latest project chocked up as a failure.
“I played for Real and I know all about their obsession with La Decima,” remarked Arjen Robben earlier this season. “I know how much it means to them, but they’re still waiting.”
Waiting. Another five days or another 383 of them, or more.
The obsession goes on.
Jerrad Peters is a Winnipeg-based writer. Follow him on Twitter.