The club secured their ninth Champions League title that season, with the France star vindicating Perez's lavish policy by scoring a sensational winner in the final against Bayer Leverkusen. The following season, Madrid continued the aggressive pursuit of the world's best when they completed the signing of Zinedine Zidane from Juventus in what was another world-record fee: 150 billion lire (12.8 billion pesetas or €77.5m).

The capture of Figo was a fitting statement of intent and they went on to win their first Liga title in four years that season. Luis Figo, who arrived in the summer of 2000 from arch-rivals Barcelona for a then-record 10 billion pesetas (£37.2m/€62m), was the first Galactico acquisition of the Perez tenure. Step forward Perez, who promised to overhaul the vaunted institution, with one of his campaign avowals being to bring the best players in the world to the Santiago Bernabeu each season. Los Blancos did end a three-decade-long European Cup drought during that period by winning the Champions League in 1998, repeating the feat in 2000, but the club was crying out for new leadership by the turn of the millennium. First Galactico eraįor much of the 1990s, Real Madrid were forced to play second best to Barcelona in La Liga, with Cruyff's Barca 'Dream Team' and later Louis van Gaal's side dominating the domestic landscape. Prior to that, Madrid boasted a team of Galacticos in the 1950s and 1960s, with players such as Alfredo Di Stefano, Ferenc Puskas and Raymond Kopa. It featured the likes of Romario, Michael Laudrup and Hristo Stoichkov, and was known as the 'Dream Team'. Johan Cruyff's Barcelona side of 1988 to 1996 could be said to have featured plenty of Galacticos. Of course, the idea of assembling a team of superstars predates the Perez presidency and is not exclusive to Real Madrid. The term was popularised during the 2000s during Florentino Perez's first term as president of Real Madrid when he and the club aggressively pursued a recruitment policy that prioritised the signing of such players. Galactico is the Spanish word for 'galactic' and it is used to describe footballers who are deemed to be superstars or boast ability levels that are 'out of this world'.Īs well as being supremely talented, a Galactico tends to be famous the world over and usually commands a hefty transfer fee. But what exactly is a Galactico? Goal takes a look at the origin of the term as well as the signings who became poster boys of the transfer policy.

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