Florentino Perez is the most successful president in Real Madrid’s history. Under his leadership, divided into two stages, the football section has won 37 titles, including seven European Cups. This is equivalent to almost 30% of all those that have reached the club’s trophy cabinet throughout its history
But this season that figure will not grow. The deep malaise of the Real Madrid president with the development of the season has several anchors, but one important one is to close it without any celebration. In the offices of Valdebebas it is understood that there is more than enough squad to not close the season without a trophy
Since June 2000, when he took office, this is the fifth season in which the soccer team has finished the season without a trophy. Two were in his first spell and three since he decided to return to the presidential office in 2009. Each trophyless season has had important consequences.
2004-05: Galactic fall
The galactic project had gone into crisis the previous season. The arrival of Queiroz to modernize Del Bosque’s winning model was a fiasco. Only the Spanish Super Cup was won and the Portuguese knew he was doomed months before the end of the season, from the European defeat in Monaco.
For the 2004-05 season, Camacho and the stellar signing of Owen were the main attractions. The coach lasted three La Liga matches and the season was a calamity. Garcia Remon and Luxemburgo passed through the bench. Madrid neither won titles nor was close to doing so.
2005-06: The resignation
Wanderlei Luxemburgo, signed at Christmas 2004, lasted until the same time a year later. He was the coach who ended a trophyless season and started another that ended in the same way. The end of that trophyless run came with Lopez Caro in the dugout.
Promoted from Castilla by Florentino, he was the coach who experienced the abrupt resignation of the president at the end of February 2006. The galacticide had been consummated.
2009-10. Bitter return
Then came the Calderon era and Madrid achieved something that will be at least two decades without being repeated: to win two consecutive LaLiga titles. But a major scandal led to the downfall of the president and elections were called. Florentino came out of the shadows, ran for election and won by a landslide. He took over a team that after the two LaLiga titles had only won the Supercopa de Espana and with the tremendous wound of Barcelona’s 6-2 win at the Bernabeu.
With his return came three world-class signings: Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka and Benzema. In addition to three European Championship winners with Spain: Xabi Alonso, Arbeloa and Albiol. The coach chosen was Manuel Pellegrini.
The extraordinary gamble did not pay off. The season ended in disappointment, with Pellegrini sentenced from the moment he lost 4-0 in the Copa del Rey to a Segunda B team (Alcorcon) and with Guardiola’s Barca dominating. The response to return to winning ways was found in Milan: the signing of Jose Mourinho, the coach who was champion of the Champions League and Barcelona’s executioner in the semifinals.
It was not just a change of coach. The 2009-10 season was also the farewell to the club of two emblems of the White House: Raul and Guti.
2020-21: Goodbye to Zidane and Sergio Ramos
The titleless season of Florentino’s return was followed by an entire decade in which Madrid never went empty-handed. Mourinho won the 2011 Copa del Rey, against Barcelona in a tremendous final in the midst of a terrible battle of Clasicos. It was the beginning of an era in which Madrid were four-time European champions, three of them in a row. It was something that had not been seen since the 1970s (Ajax and Bayern).
That glorious era faltered in 2018-19. After Zidane’s first departure, Madrid only won the Club World Cup. They did so with Solari as coach, heir to Lopetegui. In March 2019, ZZ was back. His work ensured that the following season Madrid were champions of LaLiga and the Supercopa de Espana.
The pandemic arrived, the whole season with empty stadiums and Madrid was left without titles. They fought for La Liga until the last matchday, but Atletico did not fail in Valladolid. In the Champions League they fell in the semi-finals (Chelsea) and in the Copa del Rey they were eliminated in the quarter-finals at home (3-4, against Real Sociedad).
But there was a poison running through the team: the entrenched renewal of Sergio Ramos. So much so that on June 17, in the middle of the Euro from which he had been left out, the Madrid captain announced that he was leaving the club. Before that, on May 31, Zidane had announced that he was once again leaving his position as Real Madrid coach. And he gave one reason: a lack of confidence from the club in him.
2025-26. What now?
Ancelotti returned. Madrid won two LaLiga titles (2022 and 2024) and the Champions League in that season. But last season only the European Super Cup and the Club World Cup arrived at Valdebebas. The Italian fell. Xabi Alonso was signed, but there was no real belief in him. Arbeloa arrived and, barring a miracle of miracles in LaLiga, the 2025-26 season will end with nothing to celebrate at Madrid.
So far, only Luxemburgo has resisted in the Florentino era to a season without trophies. It was by a narrow margin. Confidence in his 2.0 project after taking over the team in December only lasted 14 La Liga games. Now Madrid are considering scenarios for their bench, because it does not seem that Arbeloa will have that second brief opportunity that was given to the Brazilian.
Read the full article here
