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LONDON. — Another summer, another Galatico.
The law of averages say Real Madrid will not go two seasons without one of their huge ribbons and bells acquisitions paraded before a packed Santiago Bernabeu to do some ball juggling and declare ‘Hala Madrid’.

This summer the club might settle for its first ever Galatico goalkeeper with David de Gea the big signing.
Keylor Navas has done his best to ruin that plan by being one of Real Madrid’s best players in the run-in. He also happens to be one of Zinedine Zidane’s favourites and he went on holiday to Ibiza with captain Sergio Ramos last week when the players were given a short break before the Champions League final.

If De Gea doesn’t come.

Or if De Gea comes but Perez feels, in an election year, presenting someone who stops goals instead of scores them to the supporters is poor form, then Kylian Mbappe or Eden Hazard might get to wear the 2017 crown.

The problem is that enthusiasm has cooled over Hazard and Mbappe wants to play every week next season in what is a pre-World Cup year, so Madrid are currently trying to persuade him to commit to them and then stay in France for one more year.

Perez didn’t invent the Galatico model but he has perfected it — albeit at the second attempt because his first spell in charge led to three trophyless seasons and his resignation.

Madrid were signing Galaticos as far back as the fifties. Then-president Santiago Bernabeu responded to the club’s failures on the pitch by signing Alfredo Di Stefano in 1953.

He scored 25 goals in his first season as Madrid won the league for the first time since 1933.

Ferenc Puskas, Raymond Kopa, Francisco Gento and Jose Santamaria were other superstars who wore the white shirt in a precursor to the Luis Figo, Zidane, Ronaldo, David Beckham side half a century later.

Di Stefano was the Becks of his generation putting his name and face to everything from Lucky Strike cigarettes to Berkshire ladies stockings, decades before image rights became a thing.

When Perez became president of Real Madrid in 2000 he wanted to revive that sense of Madrid being the natural home to the best player in the world — whoever he may be at the time. He was also massively influenced by Manchester United.

They topped the money league at the time and Perez wanted to knock them off their financial perch.

By 2005 they had managed it — Madrid became the highest-grossing club in the world with an annual income of €276 million (£240m today) – €30 million more than United.

They achieved it by, as they saw it, copying the Manchester model making a huge statement in the transfer market every summer with a big signing and over time building a cast-list of big names who could be marketed globally.

Recent history points to a remarkable truth dawning on Real Madrid — not signing a Galatico might actually help them win the Champions League.

They made no huge signing in 2015 and won the European Cup the following season and they made a transfer market profit in 2016 — again with no huge signing — and won the tournament again.

Attention these days is on signing the best young players before Barcelona or the Premier League can get to them.

Perez is still fuming that he missed out on Neymar and is delighted that in Marco Asensio he has Spain’s most promising 21-year-old and that in Brazilian 16-year-old Vinicius Junior he has the next big global star. Old habits die hard though and Madrid have money burning a hole in their pocket again this summer.

They made over 80m euros (£69.5m) from winning the Champions League, They are expected to bring in close to 100m (£87m) in sales once they have found homes for Rodriguez and Morata. And so they just have to decide who the 2017 Galatico will be? — Mailonline.