Welcome everybody to Soccer 101. My name is Taylor Rockwell, and we've got a big one this week,

perhaps a galactic one this week, this past weekend marked the start of the 2024-2020 campaign, and Real Madrid hit the ground running with a 1-0 win, and the starting 11 they put out was truly a thing of beauty. There was Rodrigo, there was Mbapé, there was Venetius, there was Bellingham, there was Valverde, there was Chouomeni, we could keep going, but the list gets longer and more notable.

With so much talent on display, it begs the question, are we in a new Galactico era?

To get to the bottom of that question, we have to go back to the origin of the term,

the different phases of Real Madrid's eras, the ups and downs that led to their present position,

and much, much more, and maybe defining what a Galactico even is along the way. Here with me to break it all down as a man who, if he does really well today, could be on the receiving end of an eight-figure podcasting move to the Bernabow. It's Graham Ruffin. Hello, Taylor Rockwell. Wow, that is quite the prize. and now I feel dreadfully under pressure that my life as a Real Madrid player. My prospects as a Real Madrid player rest on my performance in this. But I'm already stuttering. It's over. The dream's over. Taylor, I'm not going to become a Galatical. They're looking at Money's media instead, Graham. They've moved on, unfortunately. I'm sorry to report.

Graham, let's talk Galacticos, shall we?

Because we've got different eras, different players, lots of history here.

But from the basic standpoint, what is the Galactico?

Yeah, so the term Galacticos or Galactico usually relates to, as you've kind of outlined in the introduction

Taylor, Real Madrid, and in particular certain eras of Real Madrid's history. So it's basically

a term to describe periods, if we're talking about the Galacticos, where they have a collection

of some of the best players in the world. And obviously those players would then be a Galactico.

And apparently that term can be traced back to the 1950s and 60s would then be a galactical and apparently that term can be traced

back to the 1950s and 60s. Didn't know that. Which was a golden period. Yeah, I didn't really know that either.

That was obviously a golden period for Real Madrid. I didn't know that. They were the dominant team in

European football at the time. They won the first five European cups in a row. And club president,

Santiago Bernabaut, yes, he was a real person,

not just a stadium, had this policy of signing the best players in the world. And I think the

Galaticals tag, from what I could tell anyway, it's kind of been applied retrospectively to this

era, because I don't think it was used at the time, but that is where Real Madrid's origin story of being a collector of world-class talent began.

And I would say it's a key part of their identity as a club now is they are at the top of the food chain in the transfer market.

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