Furthermore, Juve and Milan are the other two clubs with really high Ballon D'Or winners, and look where they are now because they didn't adequately replenish their squads.
It is not their fault.
Italian laws caused the problem.
In 90's, Milan and Juve were what are Barca and Real today.
Seria A was by far the most popular league in the world, and all best players were leaving to Seria A.
You know how today, if a player is the best in the world, like Messi, Ney, Cristiano, James, they will want to play in either Real or Barca.
Well, in 90s, almost all best Brasilian, Argentine and French players played in Seria A (and all players from eastern europe, like current Modric and Rakitic, were playing in Seria A)
Only Spanish players were staying in Spain, and German players in Bundesliga, and English players in their EPL, as always.
Even il phenomeno, Brasilian Ronaldo left Barca after only 1 year to play in a famous Seria A back then, because ALL best players were playing there back then, and Italian teams were always in CL finals, plus, Italian teams were the richest back then and were offering bigger salaries than Spanish and English teams.
For example, just look at the golden era of Seria A:
CL finals:
1989: Milan:Steaua 4:0
1990: Milan:Benfica 1:0
-- 1991: Crvena Zvezda (Yugoslavia):Marseille (France)
1992: Barca:Sampdoria 1:0
1993: Marseille:Milan 1:0
1994: Milan:Barcelona 4:0
1995: Ajax:Milan 1:0
1996: Juventus:Ajax 1:0
1997: Borussia:Juventus 3:1
1998: Real:Juventus 1:0
So, check that era when Seria A was the richest.
-- from 1989 to 1998, in 10 CL finals in a row, Italia had their team in 9 out of 10 finals
-- they only missed a final in 1991
-- now, check that era, and count how many Spanish teams were in finals:
-- Barca 1992 and 1994
-- Real 1998
English teams?
= zero, lol
German teams?
-- Borussia 1997
French teams?
-- Marseille 91 and 93
-- so:
-- Italy played in 9 finals
-- Spain in 3
-- France in 2
-- Germany in 1
-- England in 0
Seria A was the absolute "winner" and a fancy league back then.
And as I have said in other posts, their laws caused problems after 2000' and their teams were slowly having more and more financial problems in early 2000s and after that they couldn't compete anymore with mostly Spanish and English teams who emerged as filthy rich in the last 10-15 years.
So, Real and Barca back then were something like Chelsea or Atletico today.
Good teams, but not considered as the best, like Milan, Juve (current Barca, Real, Bayern)
Also, Seria A was so hard, famous and competitive back then that Juventus directors used to say during 90's:
-- we don't care if Milan is winning Champions league titles, as long as we are winning the Seria A title
-- for us (this is what they used to say): winning Seria A is like winning a world cup. You are a world champions when you win Seria A.
-- and when you win Champions league, that is just "some" European trophy, not as important as Seria A.
So, a lot of Italians back then rated Seria A as more important/stronger competition than A CL...
Milan:Juve and Milan:Inter were world's hottest matches during 90s like Barca:Real today.