La Liga: Real Madrid sans Cristiano Ronaldo begin transformation into sleek, efficient team under Julen Lopetegui

There are many television producers who will tell you, that in between the dozens of cameras focused on the ball, there are a few which pan directly towards managers, for their faces and gestures give the perfect alternative perspective of everything happening on the field. The men in blazers and tracksuits abide too; they go through an entire emotional and kinetic graph within what is usually just a capsule in time. Zinedine Zidane is the kind of football man who makes broadcasters’ life easy and complex at once. During his time as a player, the cocktail of his gifted feet and intense personality lent him a magnetism which bound eyes and cameras alike, to such a large extent that there is a movie which spans an entire football game where one camera is focussed only on him. As a coach, even if the club he represented is the most glamorous in the world, and the team littered with elite technicians, he drew attention from all corners. How could you take your eyes off a man who, just a little more than a decade back, hit a panenka and headbutt in the same World Cup final? [caption id=“attachment_5099441” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Real Madrid have not replaced Cristiano Ronaldo with a big name in the transfer window. AP[/caption] And yet, after setting such lofty standards as a footballer himself, it took one kick of the ball to leave his hands scratching his head, and mouth gaped open. He had met his match in scoring a goal of pristine technical beauty and geometric precision of the ball’s arc after hitting the boot. Just like in 2002, when many watching on had asked themselves how a footballer could possibly attempt a volley like that in a major European final, it was Zidane’s time to ponder over the sheer audacity of what he had just witnessed. That goal was a clean, aesthetic summary of Cristiano Ronaldo’s impact and importance at Real Madrid, and a dethroning of Zidane as the greatest to have played in Madrid white in this century. A joyous World Cup summer later, both are gone. Zidane announced his departure even before the echoes from the Champions League final fireworks had died down, and more recently, in a move that would’ve caught even the weariest of Juventini by surprise, Ronaldojoined those who he had helped tame twice in two years. Real Madrid, a football club which has forged its legacy for never taking a backward step when it came to dealing with elite players or managers, now have a recovery job of gigantic proportions at hand. Managers, even those who show a return of three consecutive Champions’ Leagues, make for easier barter at Madrid, but olympian athletes like Ronaldo are generational, and often leave a void beyond the tangible. Ronaldo joined the club in 2009, seven years into their all-consuming search for La Decima, or their tenth Champions’ League title. Ever since his unveiling, which attracted an unprecedented eighty thousand fans to the stadium, he has been a larger than life figure at a larger than life club. He leaves Madrid with 450 goals in 438 games, with more than 100 of them in continental competitions, and four Champions’ League titles in the last five years. Footballers, especially those of the calibre and class of Ronaldo, cannot be reduced to mere numbers, for their contribution to the game and its zealots is far greater than a few infographics can ever convey, but at times, the sheer enormity of some statistics are worth a pause in life. For perspective, Raul, the man nearest to him on Madrid’s goalscoring charts, scored 127 less goals in 303 more matches. Even Alfredo Di Stefano, the doyen of technical competence, couldn’t manage anywhere near the goals-to-game ratio that Ronaldo did. Losing an all-conquering general makes even the greatest armies weaker, but it also brings them together in quest of what is now, an exponentially tougher challenge. In such events, it is easy to look for an immediate replacement. The existence of very few, if any, players operating anywhere in the proximity of Ronaldo’s level of consistency, is the problem and solution in equal measure. “How do we replace Ronaldo?” was begging to be followed with “Do we really need to?”, but with glasses that allowed foresight. Perhaps, it is an unfair ask from an organization of Real Madrid’s magnitude to forsake possible immediate benefits for what can prove to be a platform for long term growth, but if life can come full cycle, so can football. By not hiring any big names, Florentino Perez has inadvertently placed massive trust on his new manager and group of players who, while exhibiting obvious capability, know full well they’re not quite CR7. There is also the small matter of Real Madrid, for the first time in many, many years, not having a single Ballon d’Or winner in their squad, and the club must be given credit for relegating such things to mere embellishment. Madrid’s squad, which still boasts of UEFA’s current best goalkeeper, defender, midfielder and Men’s Player of The Year, is still the envy of most, if not all, clubs in Europe, and Julen Lopetegui must feel he has enough resources to continue their ascent. This is also the chance for players like Gareth Bale, Isco and Marco Asensio to combine better as a unit and work across the breadth of the pitch rather than feeling an obligation to look for one person every time they got possession. Ronaldo, for everything great he brought to the game, was often an overarching personality on the pitch, at times even given tactical independence just so he can work with an uncluttered mind. Like Portugal showed at the Euro 2016 final, and Sweden during their recent World Cup qualification campaign and finals, there is a case to be made for teams for gelling better in the absence of a statistical and technical outlier. Lopetegui himself, is the kind of manager who promises to be the perfect catalyst for binding Real Madrid into a sleek and efficient team. He’s not the personality Zidane was, but his record with Spain prior to this year’s World Cup, would garner him a lot of respect from his players. He also, will be the first to inculcate the need for taking a leaf out of Barcelona and playing as sum of parts. If Madrid can manage to do that, they promise to be an equally resilient, but far more aesthetically pleasing outfit than in recent memory. Florentino Perez will drink to that.