Real Madrid Pop the Cork on the January Window

By: chris | December 1st, 2008

The rumor is as of yet unconfirmed, but this one’s been inevitable for so long I’d take my sister’s friend’s cousin’s milk man’s barber’s pet hamster’s word for it. Bernd Schuster (yes, he still has a job) has been writing love sonnets in the press regarding the new van Basten in the presses since the summer, and what Real Madrid want, Real Madrid usually get. So according to two-ply Madrid-based Real Madrid fanzine Marca (among others, apparently), Peja Mijatovic & Co. have secured the services of one Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, with an announcement forthcoming and the deal closing on January first.

Which means Real Madrid keep their title as Oranje South, having replaced the injured Ruud van Nistelrooy to keep the quota steady (with an injured Klaas, it should be said, but he’ll be back in January), and Ajax get to kick themselves for not having sold him in the summer. They’ll reel in some serious change, but perhaps not as much as they would’ve were there a couple of sheikhs involved (but isn’t that always the case).

Unhelpfully, Klaas Jan Huntelaar, who hoped to score 35 league goals this year, hasn’t been spotted in weeks. While the real Huntelaar sits in a basement, gagged and bound, his doppelganger is out making pub-league strikers everywhere feel better about themselves. Some 300 miles north-west perhaps Manchester City are breathing a sigh of relief that their €40m bid for him was refused. They’ll use that change at the laundrette instead.

Having watched most Ajax games this year….sad but true. Then again, getting service from the likes of Real Madrid won’t quite be the same as getting service from an Ajax team which has at times made Arsenal’s Carling Cup team look grizzled and over the hill. And surely it’ll only be a matter of time before Luis Suarez, his BFF in goal making in Amsterdam, joins him at the Bernabeu - a place he just seems destined for.

There has been no mention of a fee, and there may not be, so we may not get the chance to assess the impact of the financial crisis, but when did Real Madrid ever take logic and sanity into financial ventures? Exactly. KJH should cost somewhere between €20-30m, and knowing Real’s propensity for throwing money around just because they can, it’s probably closer to the latter figure (though De Telegraaf thinks closer to the former, so what the hell do I know?).

The question now is: will Bernd Schuster be around long enough to enjoy his new toy?