Real Madrid can dominate European football for the next five years with Gareth Bale, Cristiano Ronaldo and James Rodriguez... and the average age of their £530million squad is just 25

Madrid now boast a team of superstars who complement each other

Barcelona legend Johan Cruyff is worried by Real's recruitment and style

They have a side who can mix it up and play in all sorts of ways

Luka Modric and Rodriguez allow Real to play a crisp, passing game

Real scored most goals from outside the box in Spanish league last season

Madrid can win six trophies this season - and they aim to claim them all

They also want to become the first team to defend the Champions League

Madrid face Sevilla in European Super Cup in Cardiff on Tuesday evening 

Take the FIFA Ballon d'Or winner Cristiano Ronaldo, add the most talented British player of his generation in Gareth Bale, throw in the top scorer from the last World Cup, James Rodriguez, and the goalkeeper who made the most saves last season in La Liga in Keylor Navas, add the world football's most affable manager Carlo Ancelotti and what have you got?

Possibly the £530million super team that will dominate European football for the next five years.

Real Madrid's transformation into the team everyone wants to watch has even got Johan Cruyff twitching. Speaking in Spain this week the former Barcelona player and European Cup-winning manager gave his verdict on Real's summer signings and it made depressing reading for the rest of Europe.

'(Toni) Kroos was one the best players at Bayern and for Germany in the World Cup,' he said. 'He moves the ball about very well and James Rodriguez is a really top-class ball-player. Madrid have so much quality in midfield and up-front. Barca used to sign the ball-players, now it's Madrid.'

 

The praise from Cruyff and the sight of the ball a blur in the 'rondo' passing drills at Madrid's Valdebebas training ground – something that was once Barcelona's trademark – is a reminder that Real went to another level last season and are threatening to go to yet another level this season.

Jose Mourinho had made them the best counter-attacking team in world football and Ancelotti has maintained that element to their play with the £86million introduction of Bale last season making them even more lethal on the counter-attack. 

But with the introduction of Isco last season and the growing influence of Luka Modric, a short passing game was added to the cut-throat forays forward. Madrid could mix it up. Now with Rodriguez and Kroos they can really mix it up.

The upshot is that sides facing the European champions are at a loss as to how to play them. Play a high line and the ball over the top to Ronaldo and Bale destroys them as Bayern Munich found out last season. Let them have the ball and play in front of you and with Modric now supported by Rodriguez and Kroos they can play passes through the gaps. 

And they can also shoot from distance, which gives them something even the brilliant Barca team that won 14 trophies in four years under Pep Guardiola did not have.

There were times when that Barca side floundered against a 10-man defence and would rely on a long shot for the breakthrough. Occasionally it came, from Andres Iniesta at Stamford Bridge in 2009, but often it didn't. This Madrid side scored more goals from outside the area than any team in Spain last season and with Kroos and Rodriguez added that is not about to change.

It's not the first time Madrid have tried to buy every world-class player on the planet but the last time it ended in tears as egos clashed and players were brought in with no thought given to how they might play together.

Sir Alex Ferguson dubbed that crop the Harlem Globetrotters because there was more exhibition than silverware. If last year's Spanish and European Cup double are any indication there is a winning mentality to this team that will not be satisfied by thrilling failure.

Winning all six trophies this season is the aim and they can also become the first side to win back-to-back Champions Leagues. The frightening thing for their rivals is that the age of the players likely to line-up for the big games this season (Navas 27, Carvajal 22, Varane 21, Ramos 28, Marcelo 26, Kroos 24, Rodriguez 23, Modric 28, Bale 25, Benzema 26, Ronaldo 29) is just 25. And when Ancelotti does decide to step aside Zinedine Zidane will be ready to step-up from the B-team.

It's a dynasty in the making, and one that has got the marketing men salivating too. There is something for everyone with Spaniard Sergio Ramos likely to emerge as the long-term captain if Iker Casillas is eventually replaced by Navas; South American superstar Rodriguez world football's next poster-boy, Ronaldo the FIFA-crowned king of world football and World Cup winner Kroos, the German who walked out on Bayern Munich to be part of it all.

In any language (but we'll use Spanish) it's an 'equipazo', a brilliant team. And on Tuesday night in Cardiff, with homeboy Bale leading the way, it goes in search of trophy No 1 of a possible six this season.