James Rodriguez has been a gloomy signing for Real Madrid, as it represented the end of an era; of the time in which the club signed the best players in the world, however and whenever they wanted.
Florentino Perez did not mind opening his wallet to buy, in his case, the great revelation of the 2014 World Cup. Would you like 80 million euros, our Monaco friends? Here you are. Almost without bargaining.
Five years later, almost everything has changed in the transfer market. Paris Saint-Germain spent 222m euros to sign Neymar and the market collapsed. The price of the players has doubled.
It went from James' 80m euros to Philippe Coutinho's 160m euros. Madrid decided not to enter that bidding war, turning instead to the acquisition of young talented players. Will the bad momentum of a season without any trophies change their strategy? Don Nasser Al-Khelaifi, how much is Kylian Mbappe worth?
But let's go back to James. He bumped into Zinedine Zidane, who finally ended up opting for Isco, although he has never approached the numbers of the Colombian, who registered 17 goals and 18 assists in 2014/15.
Now, his future is in the hands of Bayern Munich, who can claim his rights for 42m euros. Madrid can only wait for the decision of the German giants, who refuse to enter the current bullish wheel of the transfer market, with results similar to those of Los Blancos, on the best left footed player that stepped on the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu pitch in the 21st century. The last of his lineage.