Michael Jordan won the NBA Points Per Game title for seven seasons (1986–93), but there wasn’t a player who was second during all seven seasons.
REAL MADRID was founded in 1902. The club’s origins can be traced to the introduction of soccer to Madrid by academics and students, including several graduates of Cambridge and Oxford. The founders’ inspiration for selecting white as the color of the team’s jerseys was a successful English amateur club, Corinthian FC. Real Madrid is often referred to as Los Blancos (“the Whites”) or Los Merengues (“the Meringues,” a dessert made from whipped egg whites) in reference to its jersey color. The first club crest had a simple design consisting of a decorative interlacing of the three initials of the club, “MCF” for Madrid Club de Fútbol, in dark blue on a white jersey. The first change in the crest occurred in 1908 when the letters adopted a more streamlined form and appeared inside a circle.
“Real” (which is pronounced re ' al) means “royal” in Spanish. King Alfonso XIII of Spain granted the title of Real to the club in 1920 and added a royal crown to their emblem, and around ten years later the club added a purplish band to its emblem.52 Over time, the crest was modified for various reasons and it became full color, with gold as the most prominent color, and the purplish stripe becoming a little more blue.
Although today Real Madrid is closely associated with championships and was named “FIFA Club of the 20th Century,” they were not a dominant team in their early years. Real Madrid won their first Spanish league La Liga title in the 1931–32 season, almost thirty years after their founding.53
The club won La Liga again the following season, but with the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, professional soccer ceased to be played in Spain. After the war ended, Real Madrid was in very poor shape, while other clubs, such as Athletic Bilbao, Atlético Madrid, and Barcelona, had very good results on the field.54 In 1943, forty-eight-year-old Santiago Bernabéu, a former Real Madrid player and captain, was elected president of Real Madrid—a position he would occupy until his death in 1978.
Bernabéu’s family had moved to Madrid when he was very young. He loved soccer and became a regular spectator at Real Madrid’s games.55 Like most Spanish children, he played soccer, but he started to demonstrate extraordinary ability, work ethic, and competitiveness at a young age. His skills in the playground reached such lore by 1909 that, at only fourteen, he was invited to the Real Madrid junior ranks. At age seventeen, he was promoted to the senior team, playing as a striker. Eventually, Bernabéu wore the captain’s armband for a few years before retiring from playing in 1927. After his retirement, he continued to be associated with the club until 1935, first as a director, later as an assistant manager, and finally as coach of the first team.
Even with Bernabéu’s charisma, once he became president, success on the field and in business did not come immediately. For example, Barcelona won La Liga in 1945, 1948, and 1949. At first, Bernabéu began to implement organizational changes, which took years to complete and produce results. He restructured the club at all levels, in what would become the normal operating structure of professional soccer teams in the future, giving every section and level of the club independent technical teams and recruiting people on merit who were ambitious and visionary in their own right.
In 1947, Bernabéu wanted to get the best players for Real Madrid. To pay for them, he did something innovative at the time. He took a huge financial risk and built the biggest soccer stadium to increase ticket revenues, predicting that the best-playing stars would not only win there but would also draw large crowds to the stadium to see them do it. To finance the stadium, which would one day be named after him,56 he sold bonds to the club members and fans. At the time, many thought it was “too much stadium for so little a club.” Bernabéu’s gamble paid off, and with the larger ticket receipts, Real Madrid was able to afford better players. Real Madrid won La Liga in 1953–54 over defending champion Barcelona. It took Bernabéu ten years to win his first La Liga championship as president (the club’s third Spanish title).
Not content with his success, in 1953, Bernabéu again did something on a scale that was unheard of at the time. He embarked upon an ambitious strategy of signing the best world-class players from abroad, the most famous being Argentine forward Alfredo Di Stéfano, and built the world’s first truly multinational team. After Bernabéu signed Di Stéfano (1953) and his Argentine friend Héctor Rial (1954), in successive years he signed French midfielder Raymond Kopa (1956), Uruguayan defender José Santamaría and Argentine goalkeeper Rogelio Domínguez (1957), Hungarian striker Ferenc Puskás (1958), and Brazilians Canário and Didi (1959). The remaining players were talented Spaniards (including Luis del Sol and Francisco “Paco” Gento). It is important to keep in mind transfer fees, salaries, and bonuses of players in those days were very small in comparison with today. As a matter of fact, Di Stéfano was never considered wealthy by today’s standards.
Chamartin Stadium, located in Madrid, was inaugurated in 1947. In 1955 its name changed to Santiago Bernabéu Stadium.
When Di Stéfano and Rial joined Real Madrid, they not only brought their remarkable skills, they added a “Latin American” style of play. In the 1960 European Cup Final, four of the eleven starters on Real Madrid were from Latin America—two from Argentina, one from Brazil, and one from Uruguay (two other Latin American players were regular contributors/substitutes).
Soccer’s popularity spread rapidly during the mid to late 1800s as British sailors, traders, and soldiers introduced the sport to different parts of the globe. In the alleys of Argentina,57 the immigrant neighborhoods of Uruguay, and the favelas and beaches of Brazil, the philosophy of how a soccer team won was as important as winning.58 The constraints of poverty promoted creativity, imagination, and invention. For example, they tied up newspapers and rolled up socks to make balls to play soccer. Also, their passion for and artistry in music and dance expressed in the natural rhythm and movements of tango, samba, and salsa seemed to transcend to their soccer. Latin American teams played an open, free-flowing, and attacking style of soccer. The players were artists and, in many ways, created with technical showmanship, flair, and a freedom of expression.
In contrast, at the time, European teams utilized discipline and order, denied the opposition space to move, encouraged direct passing, and emphasized a clinical and cautious approach. Their focus was simply on winning, and in some cases, not losing.
Di Stéfano used his elegant playing style, soccer intelligence, and leadership to integrate the players and teach them to value teamwork. His desire for self-improvement and professional pride set the team’s standard and became essential values of Real Madrid. Together with his gifted teammates, Di Stéfano invented modern professional team soccer and embodied all that is magical about it.59 The world-class players followed Di Stéfano’s lead because he was the undisputed leader, and also because these highly skilled players
