Reality bites as Madrid’s Champions League remontada turns to dust

Jude Bellingham saw the videos, listened to the stories and heard the word remontada “a million times”, but it was easier said than done. “There is no magic,” Carlo Ancelotti warned. In the end there was nothing really, just another glimpse of reality, the true story of their season: a chronicle of a death foretold. No epic, no comeback, not even much mystique, and certainly not much football. This time, Real Madrid could not escape themselves.

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“This is the other side of football,” Ancelotti said after the match. “There’s a happy part, which we have experienced many times, and a sad part which is today. We have to accept it, and the ‘sticks’, the criticisms, that will come. Over the two games Arsenal were better than us.”

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Not just over the two, in the two. “We were nowhere near it, that’s the fact; they could have had way more, we’re lucky to get away with three,” Bellingham said after the first leg, and Madrid never looked like matching that in the second. Never mind three, they rarely looked like scoring one. The goal they did get was a gift, the kind of moment that often sets off the madness. Not this time. Over 180 minutes, Madrid had only six shots on target. Ancelotti said earlier in the season that they would “never” have problems scoring, but when it mattered Kylian Mbappé departed to whistles.

Ancelotti asked for head, heart and balls, but there was no real reaction, no real rebellion and almost no ideas. Mikel Arteta said it was one thing preparing for the chaos of this stadium, another to actually experience it. “You realise after two minutes that it’s bloody hard, that anything can happen,” he said, only it did not. His players would not let it; Madrid’s players couldn’t. Instead, Arsenal controlled. This was not the same as the first leg, Arsenal’s job done differently, but the sense of impotence was familiar for Madrid.

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There was an explosion at the Emirates Stadium and a moment at the Santiago Bernabéu when the olés went round. They came not from Madrid’s fans but the Arsenal supporters high in the north-east corner, accompanying every pass, every touch from Martin Ødegaard, Mikel Merino, Declan Rice and the rest. That move did eventually end, Madrid racing up the other end and shooting, it is true, but it is also true that the shot, easily saved by David Raya, was their first on target and they had been playing an hour. Only two more followed. “Raya didn’t have to make any great saves,” Thibaut Courtois said.

Courtois on the other hand did, which was part of the point. For the third home game in a row Madrid were behind after 90 minutes. They needed extra time to get a 4-4 draw against Real Sociedad in the cup, lost 2-1 to Valencia and now this. This was a third Champions League defeat in a row. The second leg was their 12th defeat of the season, their sixth in Europe; they have conceded 66 goals. They still have a Copa del Rey final to play and a league title to compete for, and that has to change. Might this affect them? “No, no, absolutely not,” Ancelotti said. “I told them, we have to deal with the sadness. Hold our heads high, learn, and fight to be better in the next game.”

That though suggests they can be when this season has offered little real evidence of that. And beyond the question of how this team responds in the short term, there are bigger, deeper questions. For now and for next year. When Madrid beat Manchester City at the Bernabéu, Ancelotti said: “Our season starts here.” But it didn’t. The two legs of that tie remain the only moments when they impressed; think back and it is hard to recall another game where they did. The surprise perhaps was that they made it this far: that was a playoff, don’t forget. Eleventh in the group stage and thankful to be that high, they beat Atlético on penalties having been second best, and at the end of the first leg against Arsenal, Bellingham had said that what had happened was what has been happening all season. Madrid had run 12km less that night – “That’s like a player and a half,” Bellingham said – and it was 8km less on Wednesday night.

Not that it was just about effort: it was about organisation, balance, ideas, a plan. At the end of the second leg, Courtois noted they kept putting in crosses and that was pointless. “We don’t have someone like Joselu, a born striker,” he said, something telling in the identity of the man they missed. They missed the injured Dani Carvajal too, although he was here confronting Bukayo Saka at half-time for having his panenka penalty saved. They certainly missed Toni Kroos, the irreplaceable player they did not replace, the most significant of a handful of significant holes in the squad that need to be addressed and should have been addressed before. Instead, they signed Mbappé, seven years late. That shifted the balance, personally and tactically. It is a simple truth that he and Vinícius Júnior want to play in the same place.

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Lucas Vázquez and Courtois were the only players to talk post-game, to front up in defeat. Like after the first leg, there was no Mbappé, no Vinícius, no Rodrygo. The goalkeeper said Madrid could not be so individual: if two men are put on Mbappé or Vinícius, they might get past once but not two or three times. It is a recurring theme. Ancelotti said they have lacked an identity, togetherness, commitment, sacrifice. They have lacked the structure a team needs too. “Tonight the team gave everything,” he said. “We have not always been able to: compared to last year, this year there has been a lack of collective attitude.”

He has been saying so from the very first week of the season. That is his responsibility, and he is reminded of that often, but he alone does not create a culture. He was not the one who refused to go to the Ballon d’Or ceremony. “If people think I am solely responsible [for this defeat], that doesn’t change what I think,” he said. It does not change what happens next either, does not protect him from the day that always arrives, sooner or later.

Much is made of how this result will condition his future, but it was conditioned already, Ancelotti unlikely to continue next season. He knows that, even welcomes it. He has said that he will never walk away; it will be the club that does it. But he too entertains the idea, as he has previously. On Wednesday night he avoided repeating that, insisting: “I am not thinking about that.” He was asked about his immediate future and said he didn’t know and didn’t want to know. Brazil are back for him: they had tried before and had it been handled better, or differently at least, he might have gone.

The doubt now is how the exit is managed and when, more than whether it will happen. The Club World Cup complicates the timings. “It can happen that the club decides to change,” Ancelotti said. “It could be this year, it could be next year when my contract is up. There is absolutely no kind of problem. I have always said: the day I finish here I can only do one thing and that is to thank the club. It could be tomorrow, in 10 days, in a year. And all I will do is say thanks. That, and nothing else. If my contract is finished, if it isn’t, it makes no difference to me.”

Asked whether this was his last Champions League game in charge of Real Madrid, he laughed. “This year, yes,” he said. “Unfortunately.”