Real Madrid’s elimination from the Champions League by Arsenal may signal a revolution at the ailing powerhouse.
Wednesday’s 0-0 draw at Highbury ousted Madrid before the quarterfinals 1-0 on aggregate, and looks likely to sentence the team to a third straight season without a major trophy — something that hasn’t happened since the early 1950s.
Madrid’s only hope this season is the Spanish league, but they trail Barcelona by 10 points with 12 games remaining.
”Big questions are always asked when a club as big as ours has not won anything for one season, never mind three. Not winning anything again looks like it might happen now,” David Beckham told Sky Sports.
Thursday’s edition of sports daily Marca said Madrid president Fernando Martin, who replaced Florentino Perez last week, must respond to the crisis by calling presidential elections.
Martin was chosen by the board on February 27 after the resignation of Perez, the architect of the policy of signing the world’s most-renowned players, such as Ronaldo, Beckham and Zinedine Zidane.
The paper said club members had the right to choose the president, ”who will organise the new Real Madrid”.
”Deciding what to do with players such as Ronaldo, Roberto Carlos and Zidane can be the first mission of every candidate for the presidency,” it added.
Another Madrid sports daily, As, accompanied a front-page photo of a disconsolate Ronaldo and captain Raul Gonzalez with the headline: ”The years weigh heavily, the kilos weigh heavily.”
The paper said Martin will fire coach Juan Ramon Lopez Caro, Madrid’s fifth coach in the past two-and-a-half years, at the end of the season. It said Martin hoped to attract Juventus’s Fabio Capello, who led Madrid to the 1997 league title in his only season in charge.
”Madrid have to begin afresh, with new people. The moment has arrived for Fernando Martin, who has a lot of work, a real lot of work,” the newspaper said in an editorial.
Madrid failed to beat Arsenal in a high-tension encounter on Wednesday because their stars are past their best, national El Pais said in a story headed: ”Madrid buries an era at Highbury.”
”While Madrid looked to the past, Arsenal preferred the future of their young players. The future won,” Santiago Segurola, the paper’s sports editor, wrote on Thursday. — Sapa-AP