Real Madrid presented a team without Spanish players for the first time in their 121-year history and lost

What was unimaginable and legally impossible three decades ago happened this Saturday, globalization and regulatory flexibility through: in the match against Villarreal at the Estadio de la Cerámica for the 16th round of the championship, Real Madrid presented for the first time in their 121-year history a line-up made up entirely of players born outside Spain.

The French Ferland Mendy, Aurélien Tchouaméni and Karim Benzema; the Brazilians Vinícius Júnior and Éder Militão; the Germans Antonio Rüdiger and Toni Kroos; the Belgian Thibaut Courtois, the Austrian David Alaba, the Uruguayan Federico Valverde and the Croatian Luka Modric were chosen by the Italian Charles Ancelotti to form this Tower of Babel which was presented in the Valencian Community.

Although the base of the team that Ancelotti usually presents is made up of men not born in the Iberian Peninsula (although some have Spanish passports, such as Valverde or Vinícius), this situation has never occurredmainly because the Madrid team’s starting right-back is Dani Carvajal and his first replacement option is usually Lucas Vázquez.

With Carvajal suffering from a muscle discomfort in the soleus of his left leg that he suffered against Valladolid last week, the coach opted for Militão and relegated Vázquez to the benchwhere he was accompanied by five other compatriots: Luis López, Jesús Vallejo, Nacho, Marco Asensio and Dani Ceballos. But on the grass, none.

This situation in a team as closely linked to the Spanish football tradition as Real Madrid (but which has also occurred in other teams in that country) is possible thanks to the regulatory flexibility that occurred in Old World having regard to the sentence issued by the Court of Justice of the European Union on 15 December 1995, from a lawsuit filed by Belgian midfielder Jean-Marc Bosmanwhich deemed rules that limited the number of foreign players from EU countries that could be lined up in a European squad to be illegal.

Since 1974, regulations have allowed Spanish clubs to have two tokens for foreign players. In 1990, that number was raised to three. Since the 1995 Bosman ruling, The restrictions for players who had the nationality of a state of the European Union have been eliminated (EUROPEAN UNION).

Added to this are the concessions provided for by the signing, in 2000, of art Cotonou Agreement between the EU and the 79 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Partnership States., which allowed those countries to be recognized as Community workers in the European territory. In Spain, this regulation has been applied to world football since 2007, following a request from Real Madrid and Getafe to the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) so that Malian Mahamadou Diarra and Nigerian Ikechukwu Uche, respectively, should not occupy seats.

In addition to this, the Fifth Provision of the RFEF Regulations for First and Second Divisions and Match Bases provides that each club in the League can have three non-EU foreign players in its squad.

At the Ceramics Stadium, the venue was left with the 2-1 win. Yeremi Pino opened the scoring for Quique Setién’s men. But in the second half Karim Benzema, from a penalty, equalized for the visit, in the 15th minute. Three minutes later, again from twelve paces, Gerrard Moreno sealed the victory for the Yellow Submarine, which had Juan Foyth among the starters.

Real Madrid share the top spot in the Spanish league with 38 points with Barcelona, ​​​​​​who will be able to take off this Sunday if they add Diego Simeone’s Atlético de Madrid to their visit.