Real Madrid extends its lack of love with the League and its curse with the Spanish coaches

Real Madrid lost the Classic and the League in Barcelona last Sunday, to sign their second consecutive season without lifting any major title and a new disappointment in the domestic competition, which they have won twice in the last six seasons, and which they have not achieved consecutively for 18 years, being the last Spanish coach to achieve it more than two decades ago.

Two years ago since the last League won by Real Madrid. It was in that 2023-2024 season in which the newcomer Jude Bellingham broke out in an outstanding way, exceeding twenty goals, with Vinícius Júnior key for the ‘King of Europe’ to win the ‘Fifteenth’ and in a locker room guided by the calm Carlo Ancelotti.

Then, Kylian Mbappé arrived after years of failed attempts, and it seemed that the project would rise to a higher level, but that was not the case. The retirement of Toni Kroos with the Champions League under his arm disrupted the structure of the squad more than expected, without the balance that made it European and LaLiga EA Sports champions in 2024.

And the last two seasons are an example of the bad relationship that exists between Real Madrid and the domestic competition since the 21st century began. Of the last 26 Leagues, the merengue team has only won 9 of the 36 that are in their showcases -4 in the last decade-. Furthermore, after losing at the Spotify Camp Nou, they went two years without winning the League for the first time since 2019, when Barça also won two championships in a row with plenty of points.

In fact, since the Madrid club lifted the desired tenth European Cup in the 2014 final, they have won a Champions League every 2.16 years, while they have emerged victorious in the League once every 3.25 years. This shows how complicated it is for Real Madrid to revalidate the domestic title of regularity.

To find the last time the Merengue club won two consecutive Leagues you have to go back to the 06-07 and 07-08 seasons. In the first, led by the Italian Fabio Capello, the whites overcame a distance of 7 points in the final stretch of the championship, with a victory (3-1) on the last day over RCD Mallorca, also epic, with goals from José Antonio Reyes and Diarra. The favorable goal difference against Barça helped them become champions.

A year later, they also lifted the League, without excessive complications, with the German Bernd Schuster on the bench and a larger cushion over the second-placed team, Villarreal CF, while FC Barcelona fell far behind the meringues, 18 points behind.

Since then, Rea Madrid has been champion in 2012, in the League with 100 points and 121 goals with the Portuguese José Mourinho as coach; 2017, with the Frenchman Zinédine Zidane and with a double in the Champions League; 2020, the ‘longest’ League due to the break due to the coronavirus pandemic and again with ‘Zizou’, 2022, already with Carlo Ancelotti and in the penultimate League and Champions double; and 2024, the last of the Italian and also accompanied by the continental title.

In 2013 he could not repeat success in a season with a lot of tension and instability in Mourinho’s last year and with Tito Vilanova’s FC Barcelona equaling the 100-point mark. In 2018, despite winning the third consecutive Champions League with Zidane, he had a season to forget in the League, third and 17 points behind the champion, two less than the following year, in both years finishing even third.

In 2021, it was Atlético de Madrid, in the last title won by the team coached by Diego Pablo Simeone, who snatched by just two points the possibility of repeating at the top in a season without fans in the stadiums due to the pandemic and where they were about to overcome a great disadvantage as they did in 2016. And in 2023, Xavi Hernández’s Barça surpassed the Madridistas, who were a dozen points behind. points of the azulgranas.

THE SHADOW OF VICENTE DEL BOSQUE

And this season, 11 points behind the champion FC Barcelona with two games left after the victory this Thursday over the relegated Real Oviedo and the ‘culer’ defeat in Vitoria, it has been one more in which the bet on a national coach, even on two occasions – with Xabi Alonso and Álvaro Arbeloa – has not worked.

In fact, the last Spanish coach to have triumphed at Real Madrid is Vicente del Bosque. The man from Salamanca was the resource at the end of 1999 to fill the gap left by the dismissed John Benjamin Toshack and managed to stick with it, with seven titles, including the 2000 and 2002 Champions League, in four seasons and 185 games.

Later, Florentino Pérez decided not to renew Del Bosque’s contract at the end of the 2002-2003 campaign, despite having won the League. Therefore, it has been more than 20 years since a national coach has been successful on the demanding Madrid bench where José Antonio Camacho, Mariano García Remón, Juan Ramón López Caro, Rafa Benítez, Julen Lopetegui, Xabi Alonso and Álvaro Arbeloa have passed. None were able to win any trophy.