Real Madrid: From Serial Winners to Serial Whiners

Real Madrid: From Serial Winners to Serial Whiners

Chandler Milligan

For Real Madrid, who are 15-time UCL winners if they haven’t reminded you already, it’s been a season to forget.

And while we say it’s been a season to forget, for the Real Madrid faithful, it will be a season hard to forget.

With Sunday morning’s El Clásico defeat, FC Barcelona have nine fingers on the La Liga title after fighting from 2-0 down to triumph 4-3 in a controversial title clash.

A win was absolutely essential for Los Blancos, who trailed by four points heading into the final four fixtures, but Hansi Flick’s free-scoring Blaugrana had other ideas, scoring four goals in 25 minutes to complete the comeback before the half-time break.

For the ‘unstoppable’ Real Madrid, this marks their fourth and final humiliation of the season, and it’s safe to say they’ve dug their own graves.

Ahead of the 2024/25 campaign, with a La Liga title and a historic 15th UCL title polished at the front row of their trophy cabinet, Florentino Pérez’s Spanish giants finally secured the signing of Kylian Mbappé to complete their Galáctico team.

With Vinicius Jr and Jude Bellingham at the heart of the new era, the World Cup-winning superstar was the final Infinity Stone in Carlo Ancellotti’s Infinity Gauntlet. The final piece of the puzzle. The sharp centre of their trident.

At least that’s what everybody (except Luis Enrique) thought, but it hasn’t gone to plan at all.

As we begin to draw curtains on an eventful 2024/25 campaign, Real Madrid will end the season trophyless for the ninth time in their rich history (unless you want to count the Intercontinental Cup).

Even worse, they have lost all four El Clásicos against FC Barcelona by an aggregate score of 16-7, while losing the Spanish Super Cup Final, the Copa Del Rey Final, and the La Liga title in the process.

In the UCL (a tournament they have won 15 times, by the way), Real Madrid were utterly mutilated by Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal.

But it’s not just their performances on the field that have been their downfall this season. Their off-the-pitch behaviour has put a sour taste in the mouths of most football fans.

It’s not unlike Real Madrid to be arrogant, but this season, that arrogance has been replaced with entitlement, disgrace, and cringeworthy antics.

When the world stood up to applaud Manchester City’s Rodri on his historic Ballon d’Or award, the entire Real Madrid delegation was absent.

Despite the fact they were awarded the ‘Men’s Club of the Year’ title, Carlo Ancelotti was awarded the ‘Men’s Coach of the Year’, and both Vini Jr and Jude Bellingham both finished second and third respectively, the club believed they had been ‘disrespected’ by Vinicius Jr not winning the Ballon d’Or.

A great example of the lack of sportsmanship that cost Vini a handful of points in the Ballon d’Or voting process.

To make matters worse, the club then released a statement suggesting that if Vinicius Jr didn’t meet the requirements for the title, then Dani Carvajal should win the title as part of Spain’s Euro-winning team.

Numerous Real Madrid players made public comments on social media to suggest that their Brazilian teammate had been robbed, and the ‘victim’ himself made a bold claim that he would do it ten times over if he had to.

A statement that has aged poorly, considering his poor domestic form in contrast to Raphina’s ridiculous figures.

The ‘Why Always Me’ mentality continued into the new year, with the club notably lodging a letter of complaint against the La Liga referees following a 1-0 defeat to Espanyol.

LaLiga President Javier Tebas, who is a self-confessed Madrid fan, slammed the club for its victimhood narratives.

Attacking the referees became a common theme for the club, who, across the course of this season, has used their channel RealMadridTV to release weekly videos dissecting the performances of the officials involved in their upcoming games.

It came to the point where even local rivals Atletico Madrid released a statement urging Real Madrid to stop targeting and influencing referees.

While football should have been their priority this year, the Spanish club have spent much of their campaign talking, complaining, and sneering, to no avail.

Following a 3-0 demolition against Arsenal in the UEFA Champions League quarter-finals, Real Madrid spent the entire week launching a ‘remontada’ campaign ahead of their second leg clash at the Santiago Bernabeu.

From the club’s social media to the players’ antics online and in interviews, Real Madrid were all talk ahead of the game, seemingly certain that they would fight back against the Gunners.

90 minutes were indeed a long time at the Bernabeu, with Real Madrid delivering almost nothing for the entire clash, as Arsenal snatched a deserved 2-1 winner at the death.

It was a long and arduous sequence of whipping blind crosses into an empty box, committing cynical fouls, jeering, bickering with referees, and pointing to the ‘15’ on their sleeves.

They again demonstrated their famous lack of sportsmanship when Dani Carvajal, who wasn’t even playing, approached Bukayo Saka as he was walking down the tunnel at half-time and berated him aggressively before grabbing his neck.

A week later, ahead of their Copa Del Rey Final against FC Barcelona, Real Madrid posted a lengthy analysis of the referee team, before requesting that referee Ricardo de Burgos Bengoetxea be relieved of his duties ahead of the clash.

Despite their intimidation tactics, no referee changes were made, and Real Madrid were defeated 3-2 after extra time in Sevilla.

Ahead of the tie, the club boycotted their pre-game training and media duties, leading to rumours that they were going to boycott the final altogether.

Like a child throwing their toys after not getting their way, emotions spilled over the edge in the final minutes.

The Real Madrid bench completely lost their heads, with several players storming onto the pitch to shout abuse at the referee, and Antonio Rudiger even throwing a projectile towards the referee.

Three red cards were brandished as the club suffered their fourth major embarrassment of the season.

While these disturbing tactics have clearly been employed to intimidate and coerce the decision-making of La Liga referees, and likely with the purpose of preemptively creating excuses should they lose in important ties, it’s done nothing to stop the Catalan giants from ruthlessly slicing through them in every meeting this season.

Ahead of their crucial La Liga clash against Barcelona on Sunday, Los Blancos released yet another lengthy video discrediting their VAR team, eventually falling to a 4-3 defeat in a heated and controversial clash that left Barcelona seething after a series of questionable decisions in favour of the Madrid side.

All in all, while Real Madrid is one of the greatest clubs in history, they deserve to go trophyless for their petulant behaviour this season.

Karma has struck them in the shape of Hansi Flick’s lethal Blaugrana, and they will end the season nursing the self-inflicted wounds of their own undoing.