The flower behind the ear and the tight pink shorts have replaced the sarong and the hair-band, and this time it was a moody sulk on the touchline from the player, as opposed to a flying boot from the manager, but make no mistake Cristiano Ronaldo's move from Manchester United to Real Madrid has David Beckham's switch to Spain written all over it.

That probably explains why last night Real fans were tempering the euphoria with a sobering dose of ‘remember when'.

Beckham joined in July 2003 and Madrid went three years without winning a trophy.

Ronaldo becomes Real's second signing after the capture of Kaka. The club should also shortly secure the services of David Villa from Valencia and sporting director Jorge Valdano has already confirmed that the excellent Argentine Gonazolo Higuain will also have a major part to play next season. Those are four attacking superstars to rival the Beckham, Luis Figo, Zinedine Zidane and Ronaldo combination that Florentino Perez had assembled in 2003.

Perez is now responsible for all of the top four most expensive signings in history — Kaka, Ronado, Zidane and Figo — but just as the so-called galacticos failed to deliver on the pitch, the 'new galacticos' are no guarantee of success. The brilliance of Barcelona, the strain of too many off-the-field commitments and the lack of a strong coach invested with the power to make decisions, were the undoing of the last project — six years later the same demons threaten Perez's plans for world domination.

Barcelona have just won the treble and they did it with seven products of their youth system — players who have been playing together since they were young teenagers. You can buy the best players in the world, buying a team is not so easy. The Barca side that beat Manchester United in the final had a combined price of 54million pounds — considerably less than the sums Perez has shed out on his first two signings.

In 2003 Real's mistake was to sign Beckham instead of Ronaldinho with one board member famously commenting that the Brazilian was "too ugly" for Madrid's global marketing campaign.

The unacceptable face of football he may have been but he soon got Barca playing the beautiful game and they won two leagues and a European Cup.

Ronaldo is perhaps a more decisive player than Beckham was but he was no match for Barcelona's team-work in the Olympic stadium in Rome and the current Spanish champions will hope that is also true of next season's league campaign.

In Beckham's first season it was not Barcelona but Rafa Benitez' Valencia who came from nowhere to take the crown. An energy-sapping tour of the Far East replaced the thorough pre-season that then-coach Carlos Quieroz wanted and by February the legs were buckling beneath his expensive players, turning a potential treble into a trophyless season.

Perez is yet to announce pre-season plans but he hasn't brought two new Ferraris to keep them locked up in the garage until the season kicks-off.