Back in the PSG thread, someone mentioned Royston Drenthe and I was surprised to see a picture with him training with Ronaldo as he is such a forgotten player, I just thought he played his last game for Real Madrid many years before Ronaldo joined. It got me thinking about what he is doing now and all the other players, success, failure or in-between, that have put on the famous white shirt. So, I will kick it off with the aforementioned Royston Drenthe. Joining Real Madrid in in 2007, he played a grand total of 65 games for us, making Real Madrid the team he played for the most. During his time here I remember him being quite comical, literally falling all over the pitch. I also remember a loan move to Hercules which ended in disaster with him refusing to train or something and then moving to Everton, a decent club at the time, only to act like a complete wanker before being moved on yet again. His last professional club he played for was Baniyas, a club based in Abu-Dhabi, back in 2016. After expressing that he is fed up with football, he is now focusing on a music career.
I thought you started this thread because of Pedro Leon, who played against Real Madrid yesterday. I did not know he plays for Eibar until last night. While in Madrid, he was seldom used. He was better known for his fight with Fernando Gago. Gago was at one point a key player for us, but I do not recall if he was still good when he fought with Pedro Leon. We all probably knew that Pedor Leon returned to Getafe after leaving Real Madrid. He remained a regular in La Liga. Some of the newer fans probably did not know that he played for us. For old times' sake, Pedro Leon scored the equaliser against AC Milan at San Siro that sent us to the next round. That was my only impression of him while playing for Real Madrid.
I remember Pedo Leon coming on as a sub and not obeying Mourinho's instructions, rest was as they say, history.
The break up came when he called Michel to tell him he's not happy, and told him how the team trained and who would play against Getafe before we faced them. Mourinho pretty much forgot about him after that, and there are rumours that Pedro Leon had to sign a contract that would forbid him from talking about Mourinho for as long as he was Real Madrid coach, but i refuse to believe that since by the time Mou got sacked, Pedro Leon would have been the first to start blabbering.
I saw Morientes posted a photo of himself with Raul and Fernando Sanz in instagram. Perhaps, people don't remember Fernando Sanz. He did not play much here. He was interesting because his father is Lorenzo Sanz, the Real Madrid president before Perez. Fernando Sanz was a part of the 1998 team that won the CL. He played for Malaga after he left Real Madrid. After his retirement, he became the president of Malaga, a club bought by his father. His brother-in-law was Michel Salgado, who married his son and the daughter of Lorenzo Sanz. According to his instagram account, he is currently the General Director MENA and Director of Ambassadors LaLiga. https://www.instagram.com/fernandosanz_19/?hl=en
The best midfielder I've seen in my lifetime. Era diferenteEra eleganteEra únicoEra fútbol🎩 Fernando Redondo 🎩 pic.twitter.com/z8PMf5Vp4W— LALIGA (@LaLiga) July 7, 2018
Redondo was our best defensive midfielder ever and one of the greatest of all time in his position. What a player, he made the likes Keane and Scholes look like average players back in 2000.
I don't remember the 2000 season very much. We had Redondo in his prime. We had Raul in his good days. Generally we had a good team on the paper. Why did we end 5th in the league!?
Too much instability and politics at Real Madrid. We use to draw so many games, however when we was in the champions league we were a different team, especially when Del Bosque arrived. Anelka was causing problems i remember too.
Capello changed things when he arrived and built the core team otherwise we would never have won the 1998 champions league never mind 2000.
Valdano brought Redondo though if iam not wrong. Didn't we lose like 2 league titles to Barca, in the last week losing to Valdano's Tenerife with Redondo at it's core? Then he brought Redondo here when he became our coach.
Just to draw comparisons to current day, Redondo was also sold when he was seemingly still very capable of contributing at a high level. A lot of fans were against the move, and Redondo himself didn't want to leave. Also sold to an Italian team who were hoping he'd bring them back to European success. Galliani at the time said they got a bargain for a top 5 player in the world. In the end, that was the start of the end of his career as he never played much for Milan. And Real Madrid moved on.
Javier Portillo. Remember him? In 1994, aged 12, Portillo entered Real Madrid's youth system. During seven seasons he was a prolific scorer, netting 150 goals and breaking a record previously held by Raúl. In 2002 he signed his first professional contract, running until 2007 with a release clause of €35 million. I remember thinking he was going to be the next Raul. Unfortunately, he never really had much success at any club and spent most of his time, and the last few years of his career, at Hércules playing in the lower divisions. He is now Sporting Director at said club.
Real Madrid came to Hong Kong in 2003. I was at the stadium. Portillo was probably playing in the 2nd half. My wife who could not tell the difference between Raul and Figo mentioned to me: "That guy kept missing the easy goal." I was not playing attention at that point of match and said: "Who? Oh.... that's Portillo. He is the next superstar of Real Madrid."
I was looking at Modric's thread..... trying to name some great Real Madrid players from the former Yugoslavia. I suddenly remembered Dejan Petkovic... actually, he was before my time as a Real Madrid fan, but I remembered him playing in Shanghai (my part of the world) when I was already an active member of this forum. He was more of a curiosity than anything. He probably did not do anything for us.... and not many people remembered him playing for us. I just googled him.... he was Lorenzo Sanz's first ever signing for Rea; Madrid. So who is he? Why is he so important to the world of football? In 1997, he went to play in the Brazilian league, which was extremely rare for an European footballer anywhere in history. Over time, he became a superstar in Brazil. He is probably the greatest European ever to have played in South America. He was known for that outside of Brazil. He actually made my all-time greatest team for Flamingo and Serbia, but I picked him as a cult hero. He definitely made the all-time team for Flamengo, but Serbia?