Kaka In Madrid The Peasants Revolting
Today, Ricardo Izecson dos Santos Leite, or Kaka as his brother Rodrigo dubbed him when he couldn’t say his real name, finally signed for Real Madrid as predicted. 65 million euros for a player signed out of Sao Paolo Brazil in 2003 for a one eighth that cost.
It’s a shrewd piece of business for Milan, if Milan can get anything out of the declining form of Ronaldinho, and they can rebuild an aging club filled with squad players like Ambrosini, Zambrotta and Jankulovski, also-rans like Kaladze, Kalac, and Favali, and absolute detritus like Dida, they can begin challenging for scudetti again. They have young talent; Thiago Silva is on the cusp of Dopey’s Brazil squad, Flamini has the energy if not the bite of Gatusso, Tabare Viudez is a youtube phenom, and Alexandre Pato will one-day be the best player in the world. What they don’t have, and here is where Dr. Evil Galliani takes the blame, is young depth competing for a place in the squad. The close to “100 million dollars” that Dr. Evil got for Kaka needs to be spent wisely, something that Juventus did after the last Florentino Revolution at Real Madrid (selling Zidane and buying Nedved and Buffon amongst others), but I’ll hold out judgement there as Milan are not the wisest judges of talent.
As for Madrid? They’ve got their Zidane, although Ricky is a different sort of player, more dynamic in his forward runs, less precise on the ball but also more predictable than Zidane. Perez has said that Zidane was the cheapest buy he ever made for Madrid, as he made more money for the club than what they initially paid for him, but this time it’ll be different. Kaka is not Zidane and won’t be walking into a club already filled with talent. They don’t have the luxury of investing in a Zidane one year, Figo the next, and so on. Real Madrid will have to invest quickly, accelerate the Galactico-fication of the club, and hope that Pellegrini can mold them into a club quickly.
Kaka wants to be the best player in the world again, win the World Cup as the focal point in the selecao, so he’s taking a risk in the build up to South Africa 2010 by joining a club like Madrid in mid-revolutionary stage. Can he do it? Absolutely.
Related Posts
Serie A Weekly – Kaka Decision Set For Monday
RTE Sport – Kaka joins Madrid to help Milan
Milan’s Curva Sud – Kaka becomes a Galactico
ForzaFutbol – A steaming load of Kaka
