According to reports, Trent Alexander-Arnold’s move to Real Madrid after winning the Premier League is no longer a secret. Only one step remains before the official announcement, marking another chapter in Florentino Perez’s exceptional transfer strategy.

While everyone knows Alexander-Arnold will join Real Madrid, the official announcement will still be one of the biggest transfer bombshells of the year. Despite his childhood dream of becoming a Liverpool legend, he couldn’t resist the temptation of wearing the Real Madrid jersey.

This is a strategy Florentino Perez has mastered over the years. Real Madrid has become the only club that recruits the world’s biggest football stars without paying a single euro.

The most important tool Perez uses to execute this strategy is the inherent appeal of playing for Real Madrid. No footballer in the world would refuse the chance to wear the Real Madrid jersey—except perhaps some Barcelona stars who are so beloved by their fans that they would never consider joining their rivals.

Perez has shown in the last two years that stars like Kylian Mbappe and Trent Alexander-Arnold are willing to fight against their former clubs and fans to join Real Madrid.

When Real Madrid targets a star, they negotiate directly. In the cases of Mbappe and Alexander-Arnold, they approached players in the final year of their contracts. These stars resisted efforts from Paris Saint-Germain and Liverpool to renew their deals and ultimately joined Real Madrid as free agents.