Real Madrid’s season is heading to the same place as five years ago: nowhere near a title. They are still alive in La Liga and the Champions League, but both paths look steep.
Real Madrid is headed toward a trophyless season, something that hasn't happened since the 2020-21 campaign. The loss in the first leg of the European Cup quarterfinal paints a bleak picture for Alvaro Arbeloa's team, which saw its La Liga hopes all but vanish last weekend and then looked powerless Tuesday against Bayern Munich, which confirmed its status as the big favorite in the Champions League.
The 2025-26 season could go down in Real Madrid's black history, as the club has not finished a season without titles since 2020-21, during Zinedine Zidane's second stint on the Bernabeu club's sideline.
That Madrid, in a season marked by the pandemic, was runner-up in La Liga (won by Atletico) and at least reached the European Cup semifinals, where it was eliminated by Chelsea.
In the other cup competitions, its performance was dismal: a loss in the Spanish Super Cup semifinal to Athletic Bilbao and a first-round knockout in the Copa del Rey to Alcoyano.
The parallel between that campaign and the current one is evident. Second in La Liga but seven points behind the leader, with a visit to Barcelona's stadium pending, the team's situation is desperate, following defeats like last weekend's against Mallorca, a match Madrid needed to win to increase pressure on Barcelona, which was visiting Atletico.
The performance was dreadful, and the loss was deserved, much like the one in mid-January at Carlos Belmonte in Albacete, which was only the second round of the Copa del Rey for the white club.
And that was also Arbeloa's first match in charge, but not even the coaching change served as a spark for a team that, even under Xabi Alonso, had arrived having lost the Spanish Super Cup final to Barcelona in Jeddah.
The possibility of a trophyless season puts the spotlight on the entire squad, especially the big stars, with Kylian Mbappe taking center stage. The French international forward signed for Madrid to get closer to his big collective goal, the European Cup, but neither this season nor last has the club come close to lifting the trophy.
Awaiting what might happen in the second leg in Munich (next Wednesday), the truth is that Madrid, with Mbappe, is far from Europe's top clubs, which, until recently, it led with unquestionable superiority.
The 2025-26 season would follow, if the loss in Germany and the La Liga title for Barcelona are confirmed, a similarly disappointing 2024-25 campaign in terms of trophies, a season in which the white club played a total of seven.
It could only win the European Super Cup and the Club World Cup, which ultimately led to Carlo Ancelotti's departure from the Chamartin sideline.
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