Paul Pogba not the only big target for Real Madrid as they and rivals Atletico prepare lavish summer rebuilds to signal end of an era

Paul Pogba is being earmarked to be at the heart of a new-look Real Madrid, while across town Atletico are about to reboot after losing faces that had become synonymous with Diego Simeone’s red-and-white striped grinders

Football in Madrid is burning, and even the sloshing pints of more than 100,000 English football fans descending on Spain’s glorious capital in two weeks won’t be able to put it out.

This is a problem which will take tens of millions of Euros to fix, but fortunately Real Madrid and their crosstown rivals Atletico are both well-positioned to execute those expensive rebuilds. How they pan out will affect the landscape of elite European football for the next 5-10 years.

At Atleti, things feel like the end of an era.

Diego Simeone will continue for now but many of the pillars of his team, one of the best of the decade anywhere in the world, are set to depart. Antoine Griezmann looks ready to make the move he pulled out of last year and finally join Barcelona. Diego Godin, the team’s beating heart, will move to Inter, Juanfran has not had his contract extended and Lucas Hernandez will be sold to Bayern Munich.

It is an enormous upheaval and sees many of the players who had become the face of this club make the difficult move away, something especially hard to imagine when a man manager of Simeone’s level is the coach and the team has prided itself on being such a familial environment.

The Argentine will remain in place – for now – and had hoped to build around a new, young core. Manchester City’s pursuit of midfield metronome Rodri could throw a spanner into those works but there will be interesting arrivals at Atleti – there always are.

Mauro Icardi and Paulo Dybala have been linked, and immediately you could see how both would effortlessly fill holes in Simeone’s first XI. Juventus are their potential road block on both, with the former likely to emerge as a target should the Old Lady sell the latter.

Across Madrid there is also a plan for significant upheaval. When Zinedine Zidane returned to the club in March, things were different from his previous, trophy-laden reign. Zidane had, in part, stepped away from the club because there was some division internally over the level of rebuild needed at the club. The half-season of results that followed demonstrated the Frenchman’s assessment that Madrid had an ageing squad at breaking point was accurate. Now it is Zidane ‘que manda en el club‘, sources say. It is he who is in charge.

For possibly the first time since Jose Mourinho’s ousting of Jorge Valdano, a manager has significant control, to the point of final say, over player recruitment.

With that in mind, there have been a raft of swift changes of direction. Some of those had been expected, like Gareth Bale’s seemingly inevitable departure. Others were more surprising, with Keylor Navas advised he was now expendable after Zidane spent years turning down goalkeepers Florentino Perez tried to foist upon him – most notably David De Gea and Kepa Arrizabalaga.

Griezmann could finally depart the capital this summer (AFP/Getty) (Getty)

Internally, this is seen as Zidane being willing to compromise with at least some of the demands of his superiors. Isco’s future is up in the air, and so too is that of Ballon d’Or winner Luka Modric and even Toni Kroos. Real Madrid could completely rebuild the midfield that was the engine behind their three-peat of Champions League triumphs, and Paul Pogba is pegged to be the new centre of this team.

Madrid and Manchester United are now in discussions over the player’s transfer, with the Old Trafford club having softened their stance on selling him from even two months ago. There was always the issue of a contract extension coming up this summer but United had felt for much of the season that things were in hand and, when Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s new manager bounce appeared to be building around Pogba’s resurgence, you could see why Mino Raiola was licking his lips. In the end, though, it was Pogba’s increased transfer value that was making the Dutch ‘superagent’ salivate.

Real Madrid have long been seen as an obvious destination for Pogba – one of the shiniest stars of a generation who will, should he sign, have played for three of the world’s shiniest clubs. Zidane, as a Frenchman who also conquered the world, would in theory be the best person under which Pogba could learn and develop.

Amazingly, despite winning a World Cup, there is still a feeling of unfulfilled potential with Pogba. Despite the glut of trophies crowding his mantelpiece and the magazine and video game covers from which he stares out at the world, the expectations have always been that he would turn into a dominant player in the world game whereas we have only seen evidence of that happening in fits and starts.

Hazard looks certain to move to the Bernabeu (REUTERS)

Paradoxically, while Pogba is a very Madrid signing in terms of being perceived as flashy and an enormous brand in his own right, the club preferred the idea of Christian Eriksen. The Spurs midfielder had felt he was heading to Spain for sure until Zidane’s return swayed the ideas inside the Bernabeu’s marble corridors.

Pogba obviously changes the dynamic of this team whereas Eriksen would have been a fairly seamless like-for-like successor for Luka Modric. Along with the removal of physical power from Madrid’s frontline, which has lost Cristiano Ronaldo and will next lose Gareth Bale’s physicality, Zidane’s team will have a different feel and style to it next season – especially if the dinky, skilful Eden Hazard is Bale’s replacement. How quickly Brazilian youngsters Rodrygo and Vinicius Junior can develop will be the decisive factor in how the new frontline fares, though at least one new attacker will arrive – possibly Luka Jovic.

The Madrid heirarchy prefer Eriksen to Pogba (Getty)

These two clubs both have much to do this summer to reshape and reboot after another La Liga title for Barcelona.

They will go about their business in different manners, heading in different directions, but the one thing not in doubt is that the results of their summer spending will influence the outcome in some of European football’s biggest games and tournaments over the coming seasons.