Real doubt surrounds Cassano's attitude

Euroscene: What price the latest "galactico"? As Real Madrid continue to struggle, 13 points behind eternal rivals Barcelona following a 0-0 weekend draw with Villareal, the world's most famous club have turned to a familiar medicine to pull themselves out of a slump.

For crisis-ridden Real Madrid, the recommended therapy is to go "shopping". In other words, they have gone out and bought themselves yet another striker, the 23-year-old Italian talent, Antonio Cassano.

At €5 million purchase price and an annual salary of €4 million after tax, Cassano has come relatively cheaply. Nor is Cassano the only player bought by Real during the January transfer window because he was preceded into the Cuidad Sportivo at Madrid by Brazilian right back Cicinho, formerly of San Paolo.

Last week, the club's mercurial president, Fiorentino Perez, gathered players and staff for a pep talk. The time has come, he suggested, to put your best feet forward, adding: "Real fans are sad. For me you are the best but you mustn't forget you are Real Madrid players. This club has to win trophies. Unity, quality, courage and professionalism are all needed. We have to fight hard to win all three competitions (Champions League, Spanish title and Spanish Cup)."

Down at Tregoria, south of Rome, they could have been forgiven for smiling wryly at Perez's words. Tregoria is home to AS Roma, the club Cassano left last week. In and around the Roma camp, they have no doubts about the "quality" and "courage" of Cassano but many of his former team-mates and members of the Roma staff would be less convinced about his "professionalism" and his ability to inspire "unity" in the dressingroom.

"Antonio has huge talent, he has great touch and from that point of view I'm glad we had him here at Roma but I would separate the two Cassanos, the on-the-pitch and the off-the-pitch versions. I just hope that our young players model themselves on how he behaved on the pitch and not his behaviour off the pitch," commented Roma sports director Daniele Prade last week.

The point about Cassano is not just he has been involved in a long drawn-out war of attrition with Roma in his attempt to get away to pastures greener in Madrid. In his time there, Cassano was involved a variety of "incidents", from late-night car crashes to walking off the training pitch in a huff, which earned him the reputation of a troublemaker.

If Roma went through four coaches last season, Cassano was widely perceived to have been one of the reasons. German Rudi Voeller, who left Roma after little more than a month, had a series of sharp runs-in with Cassano, on one occasion opting to send him home rather than use him in a Champions League tie, such was the player's quarrelsome attitude.

Voeller inherited a Cassano who had returned from Euro 2004 in Portugal convinced he had been Italy's only saving grace in an otherwise disappointing tournament for Italy. His attitude got under the skin of some of his team-mates as well as his (four) coaches.

Cassano himself highlighted that tension at his first news conference in Madrid last week when choosing to take a neat little sideswipe at the Roma captain, club talisman and his one-time mentor, Francesco Totti: "Last year Zidane said that I was a better player than Totti. Now if Zidane says that, you've got to believe him."

For his part, Totti maintained a dignified silence interrupted only to wish Cassano the best of luck, adding: "Seeing as how he didn't bother to come and say goodbye to us all at Roma, we'll say it for him."

Cassano was, of course, fully entitled to want away from a Roma side that is currently going nowhere (joint seventh in Serie A following a 1-0 weekend win over bottom side Treviso). Even though he turned up at Madrid about 10lb above his ideal, fully-fit weight, he may still make his club debut this week, either against Athletic Bilbao in a Thursday night Spanish Cup tie or against FC Seville next Sunday night.

Will he be the man to put the Beckham-Zidane-Raul-Roberto Carlos "galactico" show back on the road? We have our doubts.