Real Madrid have now gone trophyless for two straight seasons, which means president Florentino Perez is calling up his respected friend Jose Mourinho to do the job again and get this team to play like a team once more with a hunger to actually win trophies.
Perez, though, isn't publicly blaming predecessors Xabi Alonso and Alvaro Arbeloa for what happened last season, nor is he going to blame his golden boy Kylian Mbappe or two time Champions League winner Vinicius Junior.
In addition to stating that he still believes these two mega superstars can co exist in the Real Madrid attack, Perez brought up in another press conference ahead of the elections against Enrique Riquelme that he knows what is responsible for Real's struggles in the 2025/26 season: the Club World Cup.
Real Madrid fans may not agree with the scapegoat
Florentino Perez said of the competition, via the Madrid Zone, "What went wrong this season? The Club World Cup killed us. We didn't have a preseason, and after three months we had 28 injuries. It's a learning experience. I want to play in the World Cup, but not by throwing away a whole season. You can't blame either of the coaches."
The funny thing is that Real Madrid and Florentino did not at all seem opposed to the Club World Cup before the tournament started. In fact, they were going all in for it, even spending an extra 10 million euros to Liverpool in order to secure free agent star right back Trent Alexander-Arnold for the competition, which they were no threat to win under Alonso.
Real Madrid have had awful luck with injuries lately, and quite a few key players went down, including serious injuries again to center back Eder Militao and an ACL tear to Rodrygo Goes. Even Thibaut Courtois got another bad injury, and Kylian Mbappe and Jude Bellingham had some issues of their own.
At the same time, Real Madrid had rashes of injuries before the Club World Cup in the preceding seasons, including a few ACL tears, and, well, a club of their stature and resources should be getting adequate depth or anticipating recurring injuries to players like Eder Militao instead of complaining about them ex post facto.
The reality is that Florentino himself is as much to blame as a lack of a preseason or a tournament he himself was happy about with dollar signs in his eyes. Carlo Ancelotti told him for years about the problems in the squad, Flo ignored them, and look where Madrid is now.
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