We all know that the Galácticos time was a special era at Real Madrid and in football in general. Zinedine Zidane, Luis Figo, Ronaldo Nazario, Roberto Carlos, David Beckham, Raúl González, Guti… everybody in the same dressing room with different managers and with different outcomes as well. Many years later, Roberto Carlos reveals some of the crazy things they did.
The Brazilian defender, now Real Madrid ambassador and commentator at Real Madrid TV, spoke about some of the rules they imposed to the managers. Vicente del Bosque, the most successful one and winner of two Champions League, is the best, according to Roberto Carlos: “We didn’t need rules. The player knows what to do. He understood us perfectly. Monday trainings sessions were at 17:00, and sometimes also Tuesday. He didn’t schedule them at 11:00, because almost nobody arrived on time”, the Brazilian said.
Vanderlei Luxemburgo wasn’t very lucky at Real Madrid as he was sacked only few months after his arrival. These are some keys of what happened: “In the second game in La Liga, after arriving to the hotel, we were used to leave the luggage and have a beer or a glass of wine. On the table there were always two bottles of wine. Ronaldo and I told him ‘Professor, people here has their habits, you’ll see them, but try not to change them. Do not remove the wine bottles or the beers before the dinner because we will have problem. What did he do? First, he removed the beers and then the bottles of wine. He stayed three months”.
Even less time in the club stayed José Antonio Camacho, who resigned only a few days later after taking the job: “He arrived to the dressing room, greet everybody, with a very serious face and with his history behind Real Madrid. I only watched what he was going to say. He said: ‘I want everybody here tomorrow morning at 7:00am’. Normally we trained at 10:30. We spoke with him to try to change the schedule, we had our habits”.
Finally, Roberto Carlos spoke about the kind of life they were having in Madrid: “After every game, there were only private jets. We all met in the private terminal at Barajas Airport. Beckham, Figo, Zidane, Ronaldo, myself… And we had to train the day after tomorrow. I was praying for the games to be in Saturday so I could go to the Formula 1 on Sunday. There were private flights to everywhere. Something crazy”.
“Today I think: How was it possible that we did all these stupid things?”, Roberto Carlos asked himself in the Portuguese TV in front of Vitor Baia. Now we can understand why this team didn’t win many more trophies….
