they asked him for advice before signing for the club. McManaman later encouraged Welsh footballer Gareth Bale to sign for Madrid a decade later, and upon Bale’s signing, he gave Bale advice on how to succeed at Madrid. Bale later became the first player to emulate McManaman when he ended up winning the Champions League with Madrid in his first season. Under the Galácticos policy McManaman increasingly saw his playing time reduced each year as the club initiated their so-called Galácticos policy, with new high-profile players like Luís Figo, David Beckham, Zinedine Zidane and Ronaldo arriving each year and often starting more matches than him. At the time, however, McManaman was known for his dogged determination to stay positive for the club's cause, even if it meant he had less playing time. In 2002, McManaman turned down a transfer to Inter Milan at the time when he was made available for exchange as part of Ronaldo's signing. It was widely reported in the Spanish media that McManaman's commitment to the team won the respect of his fellow professionals like Zidane, Raúl, Guti, Iván Helguera and the two men often considered to be his two best friends at the club, Figo and Ronaldo, who backed him publicly on several occasions in press interviews. Additionally, it is believed that McManaman also forced himself to reinvent his game and transform himself with a versatility that enabled him to play utility roles in the side, thus helping him shake off a nickname he was initially given by the Spanish press, El Cartero ("the postman"), which suggested that his delivery was unpredictable. It was widely regarded as a credit to McManaman that he managed to constantly reinvent himself to be effective and useful in a squad that was widely regarded at the time as the "best team in the world" under the Galácticos policy. According to certain critics in the Spanish press, McManaman and several other teammates became "victims" as the Real Madrid's Galácticos policy was often said to be based more on marketing and revenue generation. This sometimes meant players were arguably picked not according to form, but instead owing to their money-making potential off the pitch. McManaman never spoke ill of the Galácticos policy's effects on him during his tenure, only critiquing the policy and ultimately describing it in his autobiography El Macca in 2004 as the "Disneyfication of Real Madrid" upon his