Say what you like about Real Madrid and Barcelona -- no, really, go on. Use the comments. Don't be libellous -- but it's impossible not to admire their dedication to their rivalry. One breaks one way, the other simply must break the other. Barcelona buy Luis Suárez? Better buy James Rodríguez, Real Madrid! Who better to oppose the World Cup's pantomime villain than the World Cup's fresh-faced face Prince of Hearts? They just can't help themselves. It's frankly adorable.
Naturally, both are exceptionally expensive. Money is power, after all, so spending money demonstrates possession of power, and spending loads of money on the shiniest things available demonstrates both extreme power and impeccable taste. That James Rodríguez moved to Monaco just one season ago for about half his latest fee, and that he scored just nine goals in Ligue 1 last season, doesn't matter. He had a great World Cup and he's just so hot right now. Might as well get Toni Kroos, too, since he's looking to move house and everybody's bored of the current midfield.
Details of the transfer
Details of the transfer
At least Suárez has the goalscoring record that justifies -- by the standards of football's hothouse -- the investment. It's everything else that looks odd here: he's banned for four months (pending lawyers), he has incurred twenty-six games suspension over the last four seasons, and you have to go back to 2009/10 to find a campaign where he didn't bite or racially abuse an opponent. But hey, he's good, and he's (in)famous, and that'll do; for a club so concerned with their image, it's a strange one to say the least. Mes que un club be damned.
Neither club need either player, in the boring old footballing sense, but the notion of necessity means little in this context. After all, both Barcelona and Madrid are engaged in a battle not just for titles, but for profile, both at home (where support for most other Spanish teams is declining as the big two get bigger) and worldwide. Galactico theory -- and that's what you're up to, Barcelona, so don't kvetch -- does not mandate becoming a better football team but rather a bigger football team, and so it's imperative that a regular churn of spotlight-hogging players is maintained, even at the expense of, say, buying a defence.
Not that any of this is particularly new; as ever, the only thing to do is to tut over the amounts involved, and pity the poor coaches who have to continue making plans even as perfectly useful, even excellent players are sold out from underneath them. But the scrap is lent extra spice this season by the fact that, for the first time since records began (er, 2004), neither side finished last season as the best team in Spain.
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In a weird sort of a way, one of the Clasico clubs losing out on the league to the other is acceptable. Not pleasant, not enjoyable, not good ... but acceptable. Or rather, comprehensible. Because it's a loss to the only other club on roughly the same level: a monster club juiced up on sponsorship and television money, able to field almost an entire XI of bona fide world-shaking ultra-brilliant superstars. Godzilla fights King Kong, one of them wins, everybody else gets trampled under their giant feet. That makes sense.
Losing to Atléti, though, that's not just annoying. That's embarrassing. Godzilla getting taken down by one of the velociraptors from Jurassic Park; a vicious killer, yes, but on a completely different scale. But Diego Simeone and Atlético Madrid delivered a masterclass in applied teamwork, a perfect illustration of the benefits that can come when a team, and a squad, are assembled with each other and a managerial masterplan in mind. An illustration that their illustrious rivals are so far choosing to ignore.
Perhaps this is all a little to harsh. Maybe Kroos and James represent the kind of incremental improvement on Sami Khedira and Ángel di María that can turn a Champions League-winning team into a league-dominating squad; maybe Suárez, along with Ivan Rakitic in midfield and whoever they end up buying at the back, can blow the dust out of Barcelona's gears and get them purring again. Once he's allowed to put his kit on. And it may all be academic anyway, since Atlético are being dismantled by José Mourinho and Roman Abramovich.
But at the moment, it looks rather like both of the aristocrats have decided to solve their problems by buying the biggest names they can find, considerations and consequences be damned. They've responded to being outmanoeuvred by doubling down on the arms race.