Real Madrid: 3 times when Los Blancos were on the wrong end of a sale

JAMES RODRIGUEZ

The Galactico signing of the 2014-15 season. After a stellar 2014 World Cup campaign with Colombia, James Rodriguez was unveiled as a Real Madrid player at a packed Santiago Bernabeu to welcome the attacking midfielder. Los Blancos splashed 75 million euros for the youngster that summer and he lived up to the price with a phenomenal debut season.

However, James’ involvement in the squad reduced significantly from the second season onwards once Casemiro returned from his loan. Zinedine Zidane preferred using the Brazilian as a holding midfielder that marked the end of James being a regular in the starting eleven.

Nonetheless, after a two-year loan spell at Bayern Munich, it seemed like Real Madrid would sell the midfielder in the 2019-20 summer window. To our surprise, James stayed on only to warm the bench for the majority of the season before telling Zinedine Zidane to no longer include him in the squad list.

Eventually, Real Madrid sold one of their most expensive signings for free to Everton. A 75 million euro signing being sold for free despite being on a contract is alarming. This was poor-poor business from Los Blancos. It did help them reduce their wage bill, however, even a 25 or 30 million transfer fee would be better than receiving absolutely nothing.