Of the second group of galacticos at Real Madrid, Luis Figo was the first. And he had come from Barcelona as the world’s most expensive transfer to boot. “It was not just changing a club,” he said almost 24 years after his €62m euro move between one of the fiercest rivalries in football. “I was one of the captains … I had everything in Barcelona but had to decide what was the best for my future.”
What that meant was not just pressure but being in the press all the time. “Press conferences were a little different than what you have in these days (where) it is much more controlled. And not everyday you have to come out in the press,” he told Hindustan Times on Monday sitting in front of a big montage of his glorious moments.
“But, anyway, I think pressure makes me awake and in the first year we won the league.” Success in the Champions League, for which Sony Pictures Network has extended its exclusive broadcast and digital rights in India till 2026-27, came in 2001-02 and there was another league title next term.
By then, Zinedine Zidane, Ronaldo Nazario, David Beckham had joined. Real Madrid, according to then skipper Fernando Hierro, had five of the world’s best 10 players. “For us it was an amazing moment, nice years to remember,” said Figo who lives in Madrid. But the galacticos won nothing for the next three seasons. “We won what we won. So much in sports depends on the circumstances. Talent helps you to have much more opportunities to win but it doesn’t assure you that you are going to be champions of everything. If it was like that, it would not have been important to play,” Figo said from Madrid on a Zoom call.
That Figo won one Champions League feels like an aberration but he said each of his 103 matches in the competition – the former Portugal captain is among 47 players with over a century of games in the tournament – was special. “Even when I didn’t have a good result. Because I had dreamt of wanting a chance to play in this competition and I didn’t imagine when I was dreaming that I would play so many games.”
From 2024-25, Champions League will be played in a different format. The group league will be scrapped and 36 teams will play eight games each, four each home and away, but against different opponents. The top eight will qualify for the knockouts where they will be joined by eight more after a playoff round between the ninth and 24th teams. Figo said it wouldn’t reduce any further chances of a team like Porto winning the title. Eight games instead of six in the first round now will give such teams more chance to pass, he said. But what it will also mean is “more big games in the beginning which is good for the fans.”
It would also mean the number of games going up from 125 to 189. At a time when the average playing time in Premier League last term was 98.27 minutes and with an expanded Club World Cup starting next year, would that be fair on players? “It’s complicated, no?,” he said.
“When you want more money, you have to play more games,” he said. The new format could increase UEFA’s revenue from Champions League from €3.5 billion to €4.5 billion. “You reduce games, you don’t have so much solidarity fund to distribute for everyone. It could mean clubs will have to pay less to the players. But, being a football player, I understand that players have to be more included in discussions and (before taking) these decisions.”
Real Madrid have top players now as do Manchester City but Figo wasn’t sure there would be another galacticos. What he is surer about is Portugal’s chance of winning another European championship. “Oh yeah! Portugal are one of the best national teams in the world and one of my favourites along with England, Spain, France and maybe Germany; you never know because they are playing at home.”
Not wishing to compare generations was a recurrent theme in the conversation but Figo referenced the past when Saudi Arabia was mentioned. “Let me think, I had a chance to go in 2004-05. It was nothing like this.” The Saudi Pro League has generated interest and football is a sport Saudi Arabia is passionate about, which makes it different from China, but “they have to continue to invest in grassroots, in facilities, in good coaches and not only on players that are already nearing the end of their careers.”
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