What is Galacticos in Football?

As already mentioned before Galacticos is Spanish for galaxy in the literal sense. But in the context of sports and especially football it is a lot more nuanced and layered topic that requires at least more than a quick headline scan to get a basic understanding of the implication. This term holds in the culture and the footballing landscape as a whole both in terms of Finances as well as the playing side of things along with how general operations  of an institutions are conducted.

Santiago Bernabeu is used to see superstars rock up the Spanish capital and that has ensured that their thunder is never stolen by anyone else. And nobody has worked harder than their president Florentino Perez  to ensure that at least  the stuff behind the scenes is not lacking and has left no stone unturned to turn Real Madrid into the ultimate dream team.

The term in football culture is in every fans vocabulary thanks to the above mentioned person who led one of the most successful clubs in the world on this path at the turn of the century. The second phase being the CR7 era  and while now that phrase is not officially in use but their recent buys seem to mirror a strategy and vision of bringing at least one star player every season and eventually filling the whole squad with a galaxy of superstars tehri game plan, that is Galacticos. A policy of buying big name players to  ensure shot success on and off the pitch at least on paper.

Though this policy of signing a whole host of superstars one after the other in quick succession has been a thing since their early glory years in the 60s by signing the likes of Di Stefano, Puskas, Kopa etc. They ended up receiving a fair return on their investment at time with 12 La Ligas and 6 European Cups.

But when this strategy ends up backfiring, Galacticos ends up rearing the ugly head and players are often taunted with this as jibe for being expensive flops with off the field baggage. A financial burden generally someone who has come with a big reputation and an equally corresponding financial investment on said player. 

Although there have always been superstars coming in and going out at almost on a seasonal basis, the term Galacticos as a squad is mainly associated with the Real Madrid team from the turn of the century to the 06 season where they ended up buying a lot of superstars for huge sums. However it ended up flattering to deceive initially bringing in success on an immediate basis but ultimately leaving them far worse than they were before the sudden influx of star power. 

Recently we have seen  a lot of newly bought teams adopt the same model with varying success as the likes of Chelsea splashed almost half a billion pounds since their new American owner took over. A lack of planning and direction but their Galacticos like spending is nowhere near what they would have hoped for but a systematic planned roadmap sprinkled with just the right amount of Galactico magic can propel a club to new heights as can be seen by the meteoric rise of RB Leipzig. Despite having the ability to buy out their competition in every division, they bought into a philosophy mixing pragmatism with big money spending and nowadays they are regular European giants in less than two decades. While Chelsea with the same Galacticos policy minus the planning are in a catch-22 situation at the moment.

Cover Credits - Goal.com