History of Real Madrid CF

Alfredo Di Stéfano, Ferenc Puskás and other famous players helped the club win the European Cup five times in a row between 1956 and 1960, which included a memorable 7–3 Hampden Park final against German side Eintracht Frankfurt in 1960.

The membership fee was also set, two pesetas a month, and the color of the shirt was chosen to be white in honour of a famous English team Corinthian, which Juan Padrós had met on one of his trips.

A string of four victories enabled Madrid to retake the lead ahead of the last match, but a loss to Athletic Bilbao on the final matchday meant they finished runners-up, just one point behind Barcelona.

During Bernabéu's presidency, many of Real Madrid's most legendary names played for the club, including Di Stéfano, Ferenc Puskás, Francisco Gento, Héctor Rial, Raymond Kopa, José Santamaría, Miguel Muñoz, Amancio and Santillana.

De Carlos submitted 3,352 documents endorsing his candidacy, while the rest – gynaecologist Campos Gil and florist José Daguerre – did not get the minimum number required in time.

The jury took into account the two national titles the team won that year – La Liga and the Copa del Rey – and the fact that they reached the semi-finals of the European Cup that season.

Besides that, in La Liga the squad finished in 2nd place a single point behind champions basque-side Athletic Bilbao after losing 0–1 against former Di Stefano club Valencia in the ultimate match at Mestalla Stadium.

The Belgians were coming off a 3–0 first leg win in Brussels and had the next round of the UEFA Cup in sight, but Butragueño crushed their hopes with a three-goal performance (the others by Valdano [two] and Sanchís) and Real Madrid won convincingly 6–1, progressing on aggregate.

After two brief stints as a director and an election-time defeat to Luis de Carlos, Ramón Mendoza's became president of Real Madrid in 1985, ushering in the dawn of a new era in the history of the club.

With La Quinta del Buitre (reduced to four members when Pardeza left the club for Zaragoza in 1986), Real Madrid had one of the best teams in Spain and Europe during the second half of the 1980s, winning, amongst others, two UEFA Cups and five Spanish championships in a row.

The Italian trainer landed in Madrid borne out by his five successful seasons with Milan (with whom he won the 1994 Champions League) to replace Arsenio Iglesias, who managed the team on a temporary basis after coach Jorge Valdano resigned.

Days later, surrounded by controversy, Real Madrid idol Fernando Redondo, who had openly supported Pérez's opponent Lorenzo Sanz, was sold to Italian giants Milan.

They were, however, defeated 2–0 at the Camp Nou against rivals Barcelona and were later eliminated from the Copa del Rey by lowly Toledo, as well as losing the Intercontinental Cup final to a Boca Juniors side led by Martín Palermo and Juan Román Riquelme.

The second half of the season then saw the team giving playing time to youngsters and academy graduates, including Borja, Álvaro Mejía, Antonio Núñez and Juanfran, as Queiroz opted to rotate his squad.

Camacho highlighted the team's poor defensive performances and persuaded Florentino Pérez to spend a total of €45 million on both Argentine defender Walter Samuel and English centre-back Jonathan Woodgate from Roma and Newcastle United, respectively, but failed to sign Arsenal's midfield general Patrick Vieira due to his boldness of asking for a Galáctico-like paycheck in the likeness of Luís Figo's, Zinedine Zidane's, Ronaldo's and David Beckham's.

Nonetheless, during the January transfer window, he did manage to sign Fluminense left back Marcelo (€6.5M), River Plate forward Gonzalo Higuaín (€13M) and Boca Juniors midfielder Fernando Gago (€18M).

Real Madrid took the lead three times after two goals from Ruud van Nistelrooy and one from Sergio Ramos, but were pegged back by a hat-trick from Lionel Messi, including an injury-time equaliser.

On 12 May 2007, despite not having Robinho and Beckham on the pitch (due to separate yellow cards given in the previous match against Sevilla), Real Madrid took over first place in the La Liga for the first time all season by defeating Espanyol 4–3, coming back from 1–3 first half deficit.

A late Van Nistelrooy equalizer, however, followed by a last minute Raúl Tamudo goal for Espanyol, sprang Real Madrid's title hopes back into their favour.

[62] The matches in the Champions League proved the most controversial, as multiple refereeing decisions were harshly criticized by Mourinho and Madrid players who accused UEFA of favoring the Catalan side.

Real finished runners-up to Barça in La Liga, accumulating 85 points, and reached the semi-finals of the UEFA Champions League for the third year in a row, where they were eliminated by Borussia Dortmund 3–4 on aggregate.

[81] During the last week of the 2014 summer transfer window, Real Madrid sold two players key to the previous season's successes: Xabi Alonso to Bayern Munich and Ángel Di María to Manchester United.

[87] Overall, despite playing an attractive attacking football and being the highest scoring team in Europe with 118 league goals,[88] several heartbreaking defeats meant that Real finished the season with two trophies out of six possible, which contributed to the dismissal of Carlo Ancelotti on 25 May 2015.

Cheryshev was suspended from the previous season for three yellow cards (when he was representing a different team) but played the game nonetheless due to an accounting mistake by Madrid officials.

The notable results include a 2–1 away victory over reigning treble winners Barcelona, who were on a record-breaking winning streak, a fantastic comeback against Wolfsburg in the Champions League quarter-finals (after losing the away game 0–2, Madrid erased the deficit and won 3–0 at home, courtesy of a Cristiano Ronaldo hat-trick), as well as a 12-game winning streak to conclude the league campaign, meaning Real finished second, with 90 points and just one point behind champions Barcelona, coming agonizingly close to clinching the title and overcoming a 12-point deficit in the process.

After a disgraceful 1–5 loss to Barcelona in El Clásico on 28 October which left Real Madrid in the ninth place with only 14 points after 10 games, Lopetegui was dismissed a day later and replaced by then Castilla coach, Santiago Solari.

[126] The 2019–20 season seemed a promising one, as Madrid went on a spending spree in the summer of 2019, signing Eden Hazard, Luka Jović, Éder Militão, Ferland Mendy, Rodrygo, Reinier and other players for a total of more than €350 million.

[128] After a three-month hiatus due to the COVID-19 outbreak in March 2020, La Liga was restarted in June and Madrid won ten games in a row to capture the team's 34th league title, collecting 87 points in total.

[131] From La Liga's resumption in June and until the end of the 2020–21 season, Madrid temporarily played home fixtures at the Alfredo Di Stéfano Stadium, while the Santiago Bernabéu underwent extensive renovations.

[148] Prior to the start of the knockout phase in February 2022, they were again seventh, behind Manchester City, Bayern Munich, Liverpool, Chelsea, Paris Saint-Germain, and Ajax, in addition to having been considered underdogs to all of the teams they faced thereafter.