Ibrahima Konate next: A truly ridiculous XI of players Real Madrid bought for absolutely nothing | OneFootball

Former Liverpool defender Ibrahima Konate looks set to join Real Madrid on a free transfer, according to the latest reports.

The Telegraph’s Mike McGrath has a reputable track record when it comes to transfer dealings, and he’s broken the news that the French centre-back is close to agreeing a deal with Madrid.

Real Madrid had been linked with Konate throughout the season, although the links went cold after reports that they informed Liverpool in November they had no intention of signing him. They appear to have done a U-Turn on that.

This will be the fifth of the last six summers in which the La Liga giants have bagged a big-name international for no transfer fee at all. It’s a trick they’re starting to make a habit of.

Here’s an absolutely outrageous XI of players that Madrid have signed on free transfers over the years.

GK: Jerzy Dudek

The only senior goalkeeper that Real Madrid have signed on a free transfer and the man who set their template for landing the proven pedigree of a Champions League winner for no transfer fee.

Plenty more of those to come, particularly in our defensive unit.

Dudek only made a handful of appearances across his four years with Los Blancos – he was never going to usurp Iker Casillas between the sticks – but as an experienced head in the dressing room and dependable back-up, you can’t ask for a great deal more.

RB: Trent Alexander-Arnold

Alright, clever clogs, we do know that technically speaking, Alexander-Arnold wasn’t a free transfer.

Real Madrid ended up paying a reported fee in the region of €10million to Liverpool in order to release him in time for the Club World Cup. Not bad business given he was just weeks from being out of contract.

But we’re keeping the right-back in this XI because he spiritually, if not literally, belongs in this team. He ran down his contract and Madrid were there, waiting in the wings. They’ve gotten pretty good at that.

CB: David Alaba

Back in the summer of 2021, Real Madrid signed one of the best defenders in Europe.

Fresh from winning a ninth successive Bundesliga title, as well as a second treble, Alaba looked ready-made to help deliver more silverware at his new club.

Sure enough, he won a Champions League and La Liga double in his debut season in Spain and repeated the trick last year.

The last few years have been severely hampered by injuries, but he still proved worth his mammoth wages for the immediate impact.

CB: Antonio Rudiger

A fourth successive Champions League winner to kick off this XI, Germany international Rudiger was outstanding when Chelsea knocked out Madrid en route to their second big ears in 2021.

He remained at Stamford Bridge for one more year but saw out his deal and left amid Todd Boehly’s big rebuild.

Rudiger has done well to fill the void of wild-eyed madness left by Sergio Ramos and showed his quality in the Champions League triumph of 2023-24.

LB: Hamit Altintop

We had to think a bit creatively with this one and landed on Altintop lining up on the left side of our backline.

That’s by a considerable distance the squarest peg in this XI.

The alternative to this would’ve been putting Alaba at left-back, which is fine, but we wouldn’t inflict Christoph Metzelder at centre-back on anybody.

Madrid haven’t made that many free transfers in their entire history until recent years, so we’ve had to go with this.

According to Transfermarkt, just one of Altintop’s 481 career appearances was a left-back – in a 1-0 Champions League defeat for Schalke against PSV back in 2005.

Still, he was known to do a job at right-back on occasion and was an adaptable jack-of-all-trades utility man.

We’re confident enough that the experienced Turkey international could’ve done a job if necessary, so in at left-back he goes.

CM: Steve McManaman

Alexander-Arnold’s move to the Spanish capital had echoes of former Kop hero McManaman’s move nearly three decades ago.

But one key difference is that Alexander-Arnold left a Liverpool who were the English champions, while McManaman departed a side in the doldrums.

“I felt Liverpool were very slow in coming to me with a new deal,” explained McManaman on Robbie Fowler’s podcast.

“As it got on, two years, a year and a half, a year to go of the contract, I just felt that the opportunity now to play abroad – which I’d always wanted to do, I was always thinking about doing – was more prevalent than ever.

“I felt that the Liverpool team I was playing in, if you look back, and I’ve said this on numerous occasions, I hadn’t played in the Champions League at that time.

“My football was very good in 1996, 97, 98 and I felt I just wanted to be playing at a higher level than I was at Liverpool.“

It’s difficult to quibble with his decision, given the starring role he played in two Champions League victories, with a famous goal against Valencia in the 2000 final.

CM: Bernd Schuster

A rare pre-Bosman free transfer, der Blonde Engel signed for Madrid for no fee in 1988, complementing their famous homegrown ‘La Quinta del Buitre’ core.

Schuster spent eight years in Catalonia and only two in Madrid, but he won more league titles with Los Blancos than he did with Barca – two to one.

He returned to the Bernabeu in 2007 as manager and led them to the La Liga title in 2007-08.

CM: Michael Laudrup

Imagine winning El Clasico 5-0 in back-to-back meetings.

Imagine winning for both teams after crossing the divide for no transfer fee whatsoever.

Michael Laudrup, ladies and gentlemen.

FWR: Javier Saviola

An honourable mention for Takefuso Kubo, who never actually played for Madrid but banked them a cool €6.5million profit when he was sold to Real Sociedad (having originally joined from FC Tokyo for nowt).

But we couldn’t look beyond Saviola, who belongs alongside Schuster and Laudrup in that exclusive club of players who have featured on both sides of El Clasico.

Unlike Argentina and Barcelona, Madrid didn’t quite see the best of Saviola. His stint at the Bernabeu was relatively short and sweet, but he was still a quality footballer on his day.

ST: Fernando Morientes

Morientes scored one hundred goals for Los Blancos and lifted three Champions League trophies with them.

He also showed Madrid what they were missing by scoring home and away against them, eliminating them from Europe, during his stint away on loan at Monaco in 2003-04.

Some doing, that.

FWL: Kylian Mbappe

The Alexander-Arnold and Konate sagas have somehow felt mercifully short in comparison to Mbappe’s.

The Frenchman must’ve filled a million column inches in the Spanish sports dailies during his time at PSG.

Mbappe’s had a bumpy start to life in the Spanish capital. He’s scored bagfuls of goals, claiming back-to-back Pichichis and the first career European Golden Shoe of his career, but he’s also failed to win any major trophies and been mercilessly booed by the Bernabeu crowd.

His old side PSG going on to win two Champions Leagues in his absence must sting a big, too.

Still, we’re not writing him off coming good at the Bernabeu. Get things clicking around him and the World Cup winner could yet be the modern-day Galactico that Florentino Perez has dreamt of.

For the purposes of this team, though, we’ve shunted him onto the left and away from his preferred striker role.

Sorry, Kylian. Win three Champions League titles, and then we’ll think about you taking Morientes’ spot.