The unknown “Galactico” that Real Madrid president Florentino Perez has set his sights on has been known since Tuesday evening: Julian Alvarez of city rival Atletico. Perez’s €150 million offer was immediately and resoundingly rejected—and yet the 79-year-old may have achieved exactly what he set out to do.
In recent weeks, there has been a lot of activity in Madrid, where Real hadn’t seen an election campaign in 20 years. President Florentino Perez threw the return of José Mourinho into the ring early on, along with the transfers of Ibrahima Konaté and, presumably, Denzel Dumfries. Challenger Enrique Riquelme promised, above all, the signing of Erling Haaland if he were to win.
Some sources still believe that Perez actually wants Olise
The fact that the incumbent was able to defend his position may ultimately have been due to Perez upping the ante in the battle of claims with a promised €150 million offer for a “Galactico”-caliber player. The media quickly began investigating and speculating, and soon—after Perez had ruled out a Premier League player—they landed on Bayern’s Michael Olise.
However, the Frenchman had already been declared unsellable by Munich during Mourinho’s visit for the DFB Cup, and Perez publicly claimed that Olise was not the target of his planned offer. But is that really true? Some sources still claim the opposite.
On Tuesday evening, a fairly credible source then pointed to Atlético’s Julian Alvarez—namely, Real Madrid itself—and quite officially. Via its digital channels, the Spanish record champion announced that it had submitted an offer for the city rival’s center forward—in the amount of 150 million euros. So the Argentine was Perez’s mysterious Galactico. Or was he?
The fact that Real also announced in its statement that Atlético had rejected the offer certainly raises a few questions. For one thing, the entire presentation of this communication is unusual; moreover, it earned the Royals a great deal of schadenfreude from the Rojiblancos’ digital channels, which mocked the unloved Real (“We haven’t reviewed any offer for Julian”; “You’re making us laugh”), rebuffed them once again, and made their costly offer look rather embarrassing to the outside world.
Outwitted the archrival?
Atletico and social media schadenfreude—haven’t we seen this before? A few weeks ago, they had taken similar jabs at Barcelona, which had also made an offer—albeit a significantly lower one—for Alvarez. In response, the Rojiblancos “offered” Bad Bunny concert tickets to Lamine Yamal, who is already pictured wearing an Atlético jersey.
So Real must have sensed what was coming—at least in the digital world—and perhaps even deliberately exploited the situation. With this move, Perez has, on the one hand, kept his word in a publicity-effective way regarding his announced 150-million-euro offer. On the other hand, he has likely driven up the price for Barca’s biggest transfer target—who would significantly strengthen the Catalans—to such an extent that one can now assume Alvarez will remain at Atletico. Two birds with one stone, even if he took a hit in the process.
For Perez, it’s a manageable setback, because the shrewd real estate developer has won anyway: he was re-elected by Real’s members despite facing a rival.