Galácticos

Galácticos (Spanish for galactics or superstars) are expensive, world-famous Real Madrid football players recruited during the "galácticos" policy pursued during Florentino Pérez's presidency at Real Madrid, where in his first tenure he purchased at least one galáctico in the summer of every year. is now often used in a more general sense for a select list of football superstars in any team.

The term itself carries both positive and negative meanings. Initially, it was used to emphasise the greatness of signing superstar players and the construction of a world class team. Later the term attracted a more negative connotation; galáctico becoming synonymous with prima donna and used to deride the transfer policy and side (or team) built under it, following media perception that the policy at Real had failed to deliver expected levels of success.

The term has occasionally been used to describe other teams, both in football and in other sports, that have been perceived to follow a similar policy. For example, British rugby union commentator Martin Gillingham called French club Toulon "rugby's galácticos" in 2012 due to a wave of signings of international stars by owner Mourad Boudjellal.

Although the term was widely used in the 2000s, the origins of the Galáctico policy date as far back as the 1950s when the architect of the policy, president Santiago Bernabéu, after whom Real Madrid's stadium is now named, signed star players the likes of Alfredo Di Stéfano, Ferenc Puskás, Raymond Kopa, José Santamaría and Francisco Gento in succession, to achieve Real Madrid's finest era of dominance.

In the culture of Real Madrid, the Galácticos period is often contrasted with the Quinta del Buitre era of the late 1980s. The Quinta del Buitre played a more physical and less appealing style of football and were made up of homegrown players, unlike the foreign stars who became the Galácticos.

...
Wikipedia