A truly ridiculous XI of players Real Madrid bought for absolutely nothing

Trent Alexander-Arnold’s move on a free transfer to Real Madrid appears imminent after the defender confirmed he’s going to leave Liverpool when his contract expires.

This will be the fourth of the last five summers in which the La Liga giants have bagged a certified superstar for no transfer fee at all. It’s a trick they’re starting to make a habit of.

Here’s an absolutely outrageous XI of players that Madrid have signed on free transfers over the years.

GK: Jerzy Dudek

The only senior goalkeeper that Real Madrid have signed on a free transfer and the man who set their template for landing the proven pedigree of a Champions League winner for no transfer fee.

Plenty more of those to come, particularly in our defensive unit.

Dudek only made a handful of appearances across his four years with Los Blancos – he was never going to usurp Iker Casillas between the sticks – but as an experienced head in the dressing room and dependable back-up, you can’t ask for a great deal more.

RB: Trent Alexander-Arnold

Madrid are yet to officially announce Alexander-Arnold’s arrival, but it’s the worst-kept secret in football.

Any Liverpool fans hoping their homegrown hero might have a late change of heart after their 20th title celebration would’ve been left disappointed when he finally brought an end to the saga, announcing his intention to leave at the end of the 2024-25 campaign.

“Giving everything day in, day out for 20 years, I’ve got to a point now where I feel like I need a new change, a new challenge for me as a player and as a person,” Alexander-Arnold said in a statement.

Wonder where that might be?

CB: David Alaba

Back in the summer of 2021, Real Madrid signed one of the best defenders in Europe.

Fresh from winning a ninth successive Bundesliga title, as well as a second treble, Alaba looked ready-made to help deliver more silverware at his new club.

Sure enough, he won a Champions League and La Liga double in his debut season in Spain and repeated the trick last year.

A serious injury denied him as much of a role last year and his road to recovery has been long and bumpy, but he’s still proven worthy of his lucrative wages.

CB: Antonio Rudiger

A fourth successive Champions League winner to kick off this XI, Germany international Rudiger was outstanding when Chelsea knocked out Madrid en route to their second big ears in 2021.

He remained at Stamford Bridge for one more year but saw out his deal and left amid Todd Boehly’s big rebuild.

Rudiger has done well to fill the void of wild-eyed madness left by Sergio Ramos and showed his quality in last season’s Champions League triumph.

LB: Hamit Altintop

We had to think a bit creatively with this one and landed on Altintop lining up on the left side of our backline.

That’s by a considerable distance the squarest peg in this XI.

The alternative to this would’ve been putting Alaba at left-back, which is fine, but we wouldn’t inflict Christoph Metzelder at centre-back on anybody.

Madrid haven’t made that many free transfers in their entire history until recent years, so we’ve had to go with this.

According to Transfermarkt, just one of Altintop’s 481 career appearances was a left-back – in a 1-0 Champions League defeat for Schalke against PSV back in 2005.

Still, he was known to do a job at right-back on occasion and was an adaptable jack-of-all-trades utility man.

We’re confident enough that the experienced Turkey international could’ve done a job if necessary, so in at left-back he goes.

CM: Steve McManaman

Alexander-Arnold’s move to the Spanish capital has echoes of former Kop hero McManaman’s move nearly three decades ago.

But one key difference is that Alexander-Arnold leaves a Liverpool who are the English champions, while McManaman departed a side in the doldrums.

“I felt Liverpool were very slow in coming to me with a new deal,” explained McManaman on Robbie Fowler’s podcast.

“As it got on, two years, a year and a half, a year to go of the contract, I just felt that the opportunity now to play abroad – which I’d always wanted to do, I was always thinking about doing – was more prevalent than ever.

“I felt that the Liverpool team I was playing in, if you look back, and I’ve said this on numerous occasions, I hadn’t played in the Champions League at that time.

“My football was very good in 1996, 97, 98 and I felt I just wanted to be playing at a higher level than I was at Liverpool.“

It’s difficult to quibble with his decision, given the starring role he played in two Champions League triumphs, with a famous goal against Valencia in the 2000 final.

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CM: Bernd Schuster

A rare pre-Bosman free transfer, der Blonde Engel signed for Madrid for no fee in 1988, complementing their famous homegrown ‘La Quinta del Buitre’ core.

Schuster spent eight years in Catalonia and only two in Madrid, but he won more league titles with Los Blancos than he did with Barca – two to one.

He returned to the Bernabeu in 2007 as manager and led them to the La Liga title in 2007-08.

CM: Michael Laudrup

Imagine winning El Clasico 5-0 in back-to-back meetings.

Imagine winning for both teams after crossing the divide for no transfer fee whatsoever.

Michael Laudrup, ladies and gentlemen.

READ: ‘I won 10-0’: When Michael Laudrup ruled El Clasico for Real & Barca

FWR: Javier Saviola

An honourable mention for Takefuso Kubo, who never actually played for Madrid but banked them a cool €6.5million profit when he was sold to Real Sociedad (having originally joined from FC Tokyo for nowt).

But we couldn’t look beyond Saviola, who belongs alongside Schuster and Laudrup in that exclusive club of players who have featured on both sides of El Clasico.

Unlike Argentina and Barcelona, Madrid didn’t quite see the best of Saviola. His stint at the Bernabeu was relatively short and sweet, but he was still a quality footballer on his day.

ST: Fernando Morientes

Morientes scored one hundred goals for Los Blancos and lifted three Champions League trophies with them.

He also showed Madrid what they were missing by scoring home and away against them, eliminating them during his stint away on loan at Monaco in 2003-04.

Some doing, that.

FWL: Kylian Mbappe

The Alexander-Arnold saga somehow felt mercifully short in comparison to Mbappe’s.

The Frenchman must’ve filled a million column inches in the Spanish sports dailies during his time at PSG.

Mbappe’s long-awaited debut season hasn’t quite gone to plan in terms of silverware and the collective functioning of the team, but he’s scored a respectable 36 goals in all competitions and could yet claim a first-ever European Golden Shoe.

Get things clicking around him and the World Cup winner could yet be the modern-day Galactico that Florentino Perez has dreamt of.

For the purposes of this team, though, we’ve shunted him onto the left and away from his preferred striker role.

Sorry, Kylian. Win three Champions League titles and we’ll think about you taking Morientes’ spot.