Real Madrid face trophyless season, something that has not happened since 2020-21. The defeat in the first leg of the quarter-finals of the European Cup paints a bleak picture for Alvaro Arbeloa’s team, who last weekend saw LaLiga slip away almost definitively and, on Tuesday, were powerless against Bayern Munich, who confirmed their status as strong favourites in the Champions League.
The 2025-26 season could go down in Real Madrid’s history, as the club has not gone a season without a trophy since 2020-21, in the second spell of Zinedine Zidane at the helm. That Madrid side, in a campaign marked by the pandemic, was runner-up in LaLiga (won by Atletico Madrid) and reached at least the semi-finals of the Champions League, where they were eliminated by Chelsea. In the rest of the cup competitions, their performance was poor: defeat in the semi-final of the Spanish Super Cup against Athletic Club and elimination in the first round of the Copa del Rey against Alcoyano.
The parallel between that campaign and the present one is evident. Second in La Liga, but seven points behind the leaders and with a visit to Barcelona’s ground pending, the team’s situation is desperate, after defeats such as last weekend’s against Mallorca, a match that Madrid should have won to increase the pressure on Barca, who were visiting Atleti. The image was poor and the defeat was as fair as the one in mid-January at the Carlos Belmonte in Albacete, in what was only the second round of the Copa del Rey for Los Blancos. It was also Alvaro Arbeloa‘s first match in charge of the team, but not even the change on the bench served as a stimulus for a team that, even with Xabi Alonso, had just lost the final of the Spanish Super Cup against Barcelona in Jeddah.
Mbappe in the spotlight
The possibility of a trophyless season puts the spotlight on the entire squad, especially the big stars, with Kylian Mbappe the main protagonist. The French international striker signed for Madrid to get closer to his great collective goal, the European Cup, but neither this season nor last season has Madrid been close to being able to lift the trophy. While waiting to see 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 uncontested superiority.
The 2024-25 season would follow, if defeat in Germany and the league title for Barca are confirmed, an equally disappointing campaign in terms of titles in a season in which the white club played a total of seven. They could only win the European Super Cup and the Club World Cup, which eventually led to Carlo Ancelotti leaving the Chamartin bench.
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