Real has managed to get good players to sign for them, even when they were packed with a squad full of superstars and had ample cover in the positions these players were being signed for. Add to that, before this CL run Madrid are having, Madrid were the laughing stock among a lot of neutrals, considering their ridiculous managers, crappy football, hire and fire attitude, and general ass-whooping by Barcelona. Considering all of this, they still managed to get players to sign for them.
In our hay day when we were on top of the world, we still struggled signing a lot of players because of 'MSN', players not wanting to sit on the bench, etc. all of which was widely reported for many of our targets.
Considering that Madrid have had amazing CL success, they have a manager that is willing to give youth team players a chance, rotate enough to ensure most players in the squad get enough minutes, and the general positive direction in which they seem to be heading in, I can't imagine us being able to compete for players whose dream isn't to play for FCB, if both of us want the same player. They are most likely to offer a higher transfer price/wage if they want to go up against us, and now we don't have the automatic 'better club' status that we used to enjoy.
So it's probably going to be a challenge to attract the top youngsters going forward.
