The capital-based club are ready to ditch Florentino Perez from their hearts and find a new man to love, writes Tim Stannard...
There is a golden opportunity out there for some whizz-kid, nerdy, Silicon Valley type to make an absolute fortune in the disgruntled football fan market.
A Luddite La Liga Loca is not entirely sure what an app is, never mind how to make one, but some supporters need their own version of Tinder to move beyond their failing football club and start a brand new dalliance.
The blog has a feeling that for the first time in a long and loyal history, Real Madrid supporters may have experienced one broken promise too many from their former beloved. Once again, Florentino Pérez had made a solemn resolution to follow the footballing equivalent of getting a new wardrobe, losing weight and having a go at fixing that broken door frame, but failed to follow through.
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Instead, the same old patterns and familiar failings have been followed. The door frame is still broken. The empty bags of crisps lie scattered on the floor.
The moment of sad realisation that a parting of ways should happen arrived towards the end of Atlético Madrid’s 3-0 win over Real Sociedad on Tuesday, the very epitome of no-nonsense professionalism. An own goal, a penalty from Antoine Griezmann and a strike from Saúl were enough to keep a 17th clean sheet in La Liga and maintain their dogged pursuit of Barcelona at the top of the table.
All that came just three days after yet another victory for the Rojiblancos in the Santiago Bernabéu, their third in a row in La Liga. A colleague of LLL called the 1-0 win a bank heist. Instead, the victory was akin to Diego Simeone walking into a police station and handing over the plans and timetable of when the robbery will take place, but still getting away with it.
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Instead, another Real Madrid reboot has faltered under the team’s third manager in the past 12 months, and the stories are already brewing that a fourth is being chosen – Athletic Bilbao boss Ernesto Valverde was forced to deny on Tuesday that he had been approached to take over from Zinedine Zidane. AS speculates that either James Rodríguez or Isco will be sold over the summer, while other outlets predict a wholesale Bernabéu clear-out. Again.
The star player, Cristiano Ronaldo, is calling out his ‘lesser’ colleagues for being… well, lesser, and both Gareth Bale and Karim Benzema will be missing for Wednesday’s away clash at Levante, along with Sergio Ramos. And Dani Carvajal. And Pepe. And Marcelo. And Luka Modric. Indeed, the one valid point Ronaldo made on Saturday was that perhaps there was one injury too many in the Real Madrid team and something fishy was going on with the medical services.
First-world problems
These worry lines of Madrid's are very much first-world problems for Levante, a team at the bottom of the table and suffering something of their own breakdown
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Zidane himself said there was nothing physical at fault with the team but instead blamed a lack of attitude, an issue which could see a very different line-up against Levante.
But all these worry lines of Madrid's are very much first-world problems for Levante, a team at the bottom of the table and suffering something of their own breakdown with supporters after a heavy 3-0 loss to Villarreal at the weekend. “Clearly, this worries me. If there's no unity then it's more difficult, like anything in life,” mused boss Rubi.
The one hope that Rubi and Levante supporters will have is that a combination of Real Madrid’s endless flakiness on the road this season, combined with yet another in a long line of crises at the club, could be a perfect storm. Maybe Blancos will take another step towards a permanent swipe left of a lethargic Real Madrid.
