Even more galling is that their arch-rivals have overtaken them to be considered the entertainers and the benchmark when it comes to attractive, crowd-pleasing, attacking football.
Winning back the initiative is the task that now faces the candidates for the Real Madrid presidency, who have ten days in which to formally enter the race starting from Friday. The vote is to be held on June 14.
The director of Madrid-based sports daily AS, Alfredo Relano, wrote in a recent column: "Everyone agrees: the great advantage Barca have over Real isn't the team they have today, but this thing we call style...which is easier to understand than to define."
Pep Guardiola's success in his first season in charge at Barca has been to effectively apply a model of playing that has its origins in the days of John Cruyff's 'Dream team' of the early 1990s, of which Guardiola was an integral part.
Former Real president Florentino Perez, former vice-president Juan Onieva and the little-known Eduardo Garcia have said they will stand in next month's election.
Perez, the architect of the 'Galacticos' policy, is the hot favourite to win with his hints at a return to bank-breaking purchases of the world's top players, such as Kaka, Cristiano Ronaldo and Franck Ribery among others.
Big-name coaches with widely differing approaches such as Arsene Wenger and Jose Mourinho, have been touted as Perez's favoured choices by the media, as possible replacements for Juande Ramos.
An editorial in sports daily Marca, however, warned: "As well as great stars, the Madrid fans want homegrown talent...if not, he (Perez) will fail."
