Kaka in Madrid

Ricardo Izecson dos Santos Leite, or Kaka as his brother Rodrigo dubbed him when he couldn't say his real name, finally signed for Real Madrid as predicted. 65 million euros for a player signed out of Sao Paolo Brazil in 2003 for a one eighth that cost. The tifosi in Milan are revolting and if I were a better writer I'd make a better joke than calling them ugly, too.

It's actually a shrewd piece of business for Milan, but only if Milan can get anything worthwhile out of the declining form of Ronaldinho, and they can rebuild an aging club filled with squad players like Ambrosini, Zambrotta and Jankulovski, also-rans like Kaladze, Kalac, and Favali, and absolute detritus like Dida, they can begin challenging for scudetti again.

They have young talent too; Thiago Silva is on the cusp of Dopey's Brazil squad, Flamini has the energy if not the bite of Gatusso, Tabare Viudez is a youtube phenom, and Alexandre Pato will one-day be the best player in the world if he manages to ignore Chelsea FC: or as I call them, "the club where Milanista careers go to die." What they don't have, and here is where Dr. Evil Galliani takes the blame, is young depth competing for a place in the squad. The close to "100 million dollars" that Dr. Evil got for Kaka needs to be spent wisely, something that Juventus did after the last Florentino Revolution at Real Madrid (selling Zidane and buying Nedved and Buffon amongst others), but I'll hold out judgement there as Milan are not the wisest judges of talent. I mean, they had Yoann Gourcuff who had an exemplary year on loan for Girondins de Bordeaux, and they sell him at a cut rate 15 million euro rate for the reigning French footballer of the year.

As for Madrid? They've got their Zidane, although Ricky is a different sort of player, more dynamic in his forward runs, less precious on the ball but also more predictable than Zidane. Perez has said that Zidane was the cheapest buy he ever made for Madrid, as he made more money for the club than what they initially paid for him, but this time it'll be different. Kaka is not Zidane and won't be walking into a club already filled with talent. They don't have the luxury of investing in a Zidane one year, Figo the next, and so on. Real Madrid will have to invest quickly, accelerate the Galactico-fication of the club, and hope that Pellegrini can mold them into a club quickly.

Kaka wants to be the best player in the world again, win the World Cup as the focal point in the selecao, so he's taking a risk in the build up to South Africa 2010 by joining a club like Madrid in mid-revolutionary stage. Can he do it? Absolutely.