#360view: Raul gave Real Madrid's galaxy of stars a local identity

Andy West 09:46 17/11/2015
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  • Use #360view to have your say on Raul's career.

    Dignity. Respect. Identity. Class. Some of the first words which spring to mind when contemplating Raul and his legacy at Real Madrid.

    The now-retired forward did not spend his entire career at the Bernabeu, also representing Schalke, Al-Sadd, New York Cosmos and Spain with grace and style.

    But he will be most remembered for his exploits with Madrid, where his achievements over the course of 16 years ensured that he is rightly recognised as a true all-time great.

    The facts and figures speak for themselves, with Raul playing a fundamental role in a team which won six league titles and three Champions League crowns.

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    On an individual level, he played more games for Los Blancos than anyone else in history (741), and was only recently overtaken as the club’s all-time leading scorer by Cristiano Ronaldo, his successor in the famous No7 shirt.

    But statistics only tell a small part of the story, because Raul’s significance to Real Madrid extends far beyond simple numbers and instead strikes to the very heart of football’s emotional core.

    His time at the Bernabeu coincided with president Florentino Perez’s decision to launch his ‘Galacticos’ policy, recruiting a host of the game’s biggest stars to ensure the club always remains in the global spotlight.

    Many of those mega-stars fully committed themselves to the club and became iconic figures, with Zinedine Zidane, Roberto Carlos and both Ronaldos all writing their own chapters in Madrid’s proud history.

    And for a club like Los Blancos to flourish in the modern world, there is nothing inherently wrong with the idea of recruiting established giants to lend a frisson of glamour and excitement, as well as their playing talents on the field.

    But to retain a sense of continuity and identity, those imports should also be balanced by the inclusion of more humble individuals, ideally born locally and via the club’s youth system.

    There are examples everywhere: Xavi and Carles Puyol at Barcelona; Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher at Liverpool; Philipp Lahm and Thomas Muller at Bayern Munich; John Terry at Chelsea, the ‘Class of 92’ at Manchester United.

    To retain the true affection of supporters and allow the club to maintain an intangible yet vital sense of direction and community, players like that are crucial. They give supporters someone to identify with; someone they can relate to. And throughout the opening years of the Galacticos era, Raul and Iker Casillas fulfilled that role.

    Consider the La Liga title-winning squad of 2006-7: Roberto Carlos, Ronaldo, Fabio Cannavaro, Robinho, David Beckham, Ruud van Nistelrooy…Galacticos by the barrow-load. But proudly leading them as club captain was Raul: the local boy who joined the club as a teenager and, through hard work and dedication, established himself as the cornerstone of their success.

    There is a lot more we could say about Raul: the fact he was never sent-off, his professionalism and commitment, his never-say-die attitude and the respect he generated among opponents.

    More important than anything else, however, is the way he encapsulated and defined the elusive, intangible quality of ‘Madridismo’ throughout a turbulent time in the club’s history.

    For nearly two decades, Raul wasn’t just a Real Madrid player; he was Real Madrid.

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