5 Galactico signings that did not work out at Real Madrid: Hazard, Kaka…

Kylian Mbappe next? Real Madrid Galactico signings that flopped and didn’t work out featuring Eden Hazard

Kylian Mbappe is feeling the heat of becoming Florentino Perez’s latest big-name Galactico signing at Real Madrid. And he’s not the first that’s struggled to live up to the hype.

The World Cup winner, who is widely regarded as one of the very best players of his generation, has received a lot of criticism following his long-awaited arrival. It’s been said that he can’t work with Vinicius Junior and doesn’t work hard enough for the team.

It’s still early days for Mbappe at the Bernabeu and we’re certainly not writing him off just yet. But it’s not unprecedented for their superstar signings not to work out – we’ve taken a closer look at Galactico signings that failed to produce their best football at Real Madrid.

Eden Hazard

The remarkable thing about Hazard’s disastrous move from Chelsea to Real Madrid is that the club were able to absorb a €100million investment making next to no impact. That would be ruinous for any other club.

During his miserable four years on their books, they won two La Liga titles and the Champions League.

That’s probably the reason that the Belgian’s big-money transfer doesn’t generate more noise as one of the worst in the history of football. The numbers are there in black and white: 76 appearances. Seven goals. Only 12 assists. A grand total of zero appearances in El Clasico.

When you factor in wages, that’s a mindblowing amount of money down the drain.

James Rodriguez

Probably the most debatable entry in this list, there were moments in Rodriguez’s debut season – fresh off the back of winning the World Cup Golden Boot in Brazil – where he did look a bonafide Galactico.

He scored a more than decent tally of 17 goals in all competitions, some of them his trademark bangers.

But that debut season ended trophyless as Barcelona won the treble, and from then on he was reduced to more of a fringe role following the departure of his biggest fan, Carlo Ancelotti.

The Colombian’s honours list at The Bernabeu reads a respectable two La Liga titles and two Champions Leagues but he was largely on the periphery for all of them.

His latter years saw him loaned out for two seasons to Bayern Munich before returning to his parent club to make just nine starts in all competitions as he saw out the final year of his contract in 2019-20.

That sad end makes it difficult to argue that Perez got his money worth out of his mammoth €75million fee.

Kaka

It’s difficult to forget that Kaka was once Real Madrid’s record signing, given that Cristiano Ronaldo broke it again a matter of days later.

And it’s probably thanks to Ronaldo banging in the goals that Kaka’s distinctly underwhelming stint in the Spanish capital kind of went under the radar.

This was the best player on the planet at one point, the last Ballon d’Or winner before the Messi-Ronaldo era… but you rarely, if ever, saw the Milan Kaka in Madrid.

The Brazilian wasn’t a disaster by any means. Twenty-nine goals and 39 assists in 120 appearances for Los Blancos is probably a better record than you remember him having – in another world entirely to Hazard, for example.

Despite that, it would be fair to say that he didn’t live up to the hype. He did play a role in Jose Mourinho’s Madrid side eventually toppling Barca in 2011-12 – and in style with 100 points and a record number of goals scored.

But he wasn’t one of the leading lights of that team and had quietly returned to Milan by the time they became a serious European force once again.

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Michael Owen

Another Ballon d’Or winner who never lived up to that status, Owen lasted just one season in Spain before returning to the Premier League.

He struggled to usurp homegrown Madrid icon Raul and has spoken openly about his struggles with adapting to life in a new country, having spent most of his solitary season in a hotel with a young family.

Sixteen goals in all competitions was an alright return given his relatively limited gametime, and to this day Owen defends his record on the pitch. But ultimately his short stay means that he’s a footnote of Florentino Perez’s first Galacticos project as opposed to a star player.

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Nicolas Anelka

A Galactico before the term had ever been coined, Anelka moved to the Bernabeu off the back of a sensational breakthrough campaign with Arsenal in which he scored 17 Premier League goals – a league tally he’d only better once in the rest of his career.

Madrid had seen enough to sanction a £22.3million transfer, which represented a gigantic fee back in 1999. But the tone for an unhappy stay was set early on.

“After the press conference, I went to the changing room,” he reminisced in the ‘Anelka: Misunderstood’ Netflix documentary.

“I got there first, sat down, but players kept coming up to me and saying: “That’s my spot”. I would say: “Oh, sorry. Can I sit here?” and then another player would come up and say: “That’s my spot”.

“It happened maybe 20 times. I just thought: “What am I doing here? This is going to be hostile”. What I experienced that day was just the beginning of the nightmare.'”

Anelka scored just two La Liga goals and returned to his boyhood club PSG after only one season in Madrid.