Real Madrid - Can Dynasty Be Demolished In Humbling 90 Minutes?

“Here lies the team that made history,” A humiliating end to an unrepeatable era.” The MARCA

Karim Benzema and Real Madrid smashed out of the Champions League in a striking fashion on Tuesday’s match.

Memory has a tendency to polish over the ends, to hide the spots, to powder over the blemishes. Hindsight can be twisted, and history reminds it. When something ends it creates the illusion that it’s normal to be ended that way, it was happenstance and just happened that way.

And so Real Madrid — the Real Madrid of Cristiano Ronaldo and Luka Modric, Real Madrid of Zinedine Zidane and Florentino Perez — will be memorialized as the team that was champion of Europe. They have remained champion for more than a thousand days. The first team since 1990 to continue as European champions. The first team since 1976 to win the European Cup in a three consecutive row. The team that owns four of the last five editions of club soccer’s most honored tournament.

It will be recollected as a team that established an empire and set an era, a team that cleaned all before it right up until the point that a vibrating, fearless Ajax Amsterdam hit at the Santiago Bernabeu and brought it all collapsing down in one night. The Dutch team’s 4-1 triumph in the last 16 on Tuesday pushed Real Madrid out and spread shock waves around Europe.

But though the scoreline — the magnitude of the defeat as much as the fame of the team that governed it — was awesome, the fact that it felt like an impossibility is, to an extent, an ability of the memory.

Real Madrid’s followers filed out in silence while Ajax danced on their victory. As the north end of the Santiago Bernabeu exploded to the sound of thousands of Dutch supporters celebrating, the south left quiet and sad. Marca issued an image of the north end as the final moments ticked by, the Ajax section full, Madrid’s emptying, scoreboard marking their pain like some massive tombstone.

Madrid has been continuing as European champions for 1,012 days, winning the tournament in four of the past five years. Only the True side that won the first five versions of this competition has ever delivered a run like it. But that team died, the cause of death: “Sunk in their own blood,” said El Mundo. “Before we go on, we should pay respect to a group of players who will live in the memory: since Di Stefano, there’s never been a team like this,” insisted Marca, before sketching a picture of “the most unfortunate night on record”.

Yet reasonably Madrid had knocked themselves out, beginning with Zinedine Zidane’s exit and Cristiano Ronaldo’s move to Juventus. It did not go unseen that Sergio Ramos viewing the game from a private box having sought a suspension that marked him miss out.

AS called it Madrid’s “shocking week”. It is only March, maybe Real’s season is over. “Three months, they have to live in the desert” but await, dynasty cannot be demolished in humbling 90 minutes. They will be back.