Florentino Pérez must feel as if he had never been away. Last night, barely 24 hours after returning to the Real Madrid presidency, he was already hunting down the first of a new wave of galácticos.

The former construction magnate is confident that a successful bid for Kaká will blaze a trail in which he firmly expects Cristiano Ronaldo, Xabi Alonso, Franck Ribéry, David Villa and others to follow.

Say what you like about Pérez - and there is an awful lot that should be said about his apparent refusal to learn from the mistakes of his previous regime - but he knows how to get his man.

A fee of £56million was reportedly being offered to AC Milan last night for Kaká - a world record when assessed in sterling terms, although not in euros, given how much exchange rates have fluctuated since Pérez bought Zinédine Zidane from Juventus for £45.6million in the summer of 2001. And the indications from Madrid are that Pérez expects Alonso, Ribéry, Villa and others to sign within a fortnight, no matter what opposition he encounters from Liverpool, Bayern Munich and Valencia respectively.

Ronaldo? Pérez expects to get him, too, but the strategy regarding the Manchester United forward is very different. Whereas speed is of the essence in the Kaká deal - Bosco Leite, the Brazil forward's father and agent, was flown to Madrid on a private jet yesterday afternoon to discuss the finer points of the deal - Real are planning a game of brinkmanship with United over Ronaldo. If possible, they hope to get him for less than they plan to pay Milan for Kaká, no matter that Ronaldo, at 24, is the World Player of the Year and was valued at £80million last summer.

It is a remarkable way of working, one borne of self-confidence or, to put it another way, arrogance. Legend has it that Pérez effectively secured the signature of Zidane in 2001 by stalking him at the Monte Carlo Sports Club and passing him a napkin on which he had scrawled the message: “Do you want to play for Real Madrid?”, to which Zidane wrote “Yes”. It was surely the most elegant tap-up in history. Pérez has always believed that such rules are there to be flaunted, providing you do so with a degree of style.

It had been an open secret that Pérez was in contact with Kaká's representatives long before his return to the presidency was confirmed on Monday. Rafael Benítez, the Liverpool manager, strongly suspects that there has been contact between Real and Alonso.

As for United, Sir Alex Ferguson's long-held disdain for Real's modus operandi is unlikely to have dissipated with the departure of Ramón Calderón and his replacement with Pérez.

Then there is the question of whether Pérez really knows what he is doing. The first wave of galácticos - Luís Figo, Zidane, Ronaldo (the Brazilian variety), David Beckham - were, in sporting terms, although certainly not commercially, a failure.

They were allowed to grow old and weary together as Pérez ignored the need for defensive players, believing that his superstars would carry the club to success in the Champions League every season, when in fact they ended up more like football's answer to the Harlem Globetrotters, going from European champions to underachievers and, even worse, being overthrown by Barcelona in La Liga.

Pérez seemed contrite when he stepped down in March 2006, conceding that he had made “a lot of mistakes”, but, having seen Calderón make errors of his own, he has evidently decided that a return of the galácticos policy is the way forward.

Looking at Real's record this season - they conceded 52 goals in La Liga, 17 more than Barcelona, and were thrashed 5-0 by Liverpool on aggregate as they failed to reach the Champions League quarter-finals for the fifth successive year - you would think defence might be their priority. But no, bring on the ball-players - Kaká, Ronaldo, Ribéry et al. And throw in a flamboyant right back, Maicon, even though they already have one in Sergio Ramos.

The Ronaldo situation will be intriguing over the coming weeks. His agent, Jorge Mendes, reached the outline of an agreement with Calderón last autumn over a deal that was planned to take the Portugal forward to Madrid for a fee in the region of £80million. But Pérez has set the budget for any bid for Ronaldo at £56million.

In reality, Real may dig a little deeper to try to sign Ronaldo as the summer progresses, but Pérez is willing to play the long game, just as he did with his protracted and ultimately successful bid to sign the Brazilian Ronaldo from Inter Milan in 2002.

None of this sits easily with United, who hope to retain the services of the player and who have little appetite for a summer of uncertainty and frenzied speculation, particularly if a drawn-out deal were to affect Ferguson's plans to strengthen his squad.

There was a mutual cooling of attraction between Ronaldo and Real last month, when the United forward sensed that a change of regime in Madrid meant he would be best served by staying in Manchester, but he informed associates immediately after the Champions League final defeat by Barcelona a week ago that he was unsure about his future again, particularly given the exciting “project” being put together by Pérez at Real, which includes the recruitment of Manuel Pellegrini, the former Villarreal coach.

That is one thing worth pointing out. Pérez has appointed a coach. Let's see how long he gives him.