The 2025/26 Champions League season is done and dusted, and PSG are back to back champs to become the first club to achieve this since the three peat Real Madrid side, which means their superstars are already dreaming about matching what the squad of Cristiano Ronaldo and Zinedine Zidane achieved a decade ago.
Meanwhile, Real Madrid had an embarrassing season without any trophies for a second straight year, and the difference, for many fans, has been Kylian Mbappe flipping from PSG to Real Madrid, giving Luis Enrique the opening to do as he pleased as a coach while Carlo Ancelotti and two former Real Madrid players were sent to their doom.
With the 2025/26 Champions League season over and PSG crowned champions, the official Team of the Season has been released. The winners, Paris, had a whopping five players in their XI, Arsenal had three as the other finalists, the team that elminated Real Madrid in Bayern Munich had two, and even Atletico Madrid got Marcos Llorente in there at right back.
Real Madrid are now a B tier squad
Real Madrid, meanwhile, did not have a single player in the Champions League best XI, and that is no less than they deserved. Despite leading the Champions League this season in goals, Kylian Mbappe, just like in La Liga where he won the Pichichi again, scored a lot of empty calorie goals and did not play well. He would not have deserved to have made the squad over the much more hard working Khvicha Kvaratskhelia or the flat out better Harry Kane of Bayern.
Vinicius Junior led the Champions League in assists and Arda Guler in chances created, but neither of them were better than Kvaratskhelia, Ousmane Dembele, Vitinha, Declan Rice, or anyone else in their roles. And say nothing of the defense or the rest of the midfield, as those players for Real Madrid were all so far below the footballers in the best Champions League XI of the 2025/26 season that they do not even merit mention by name.
It really goes to show you just how far the standard at Real Madrid has fallen. There is, yes, something to be said about Kylian Mbappe destabilizing the squad and making life harder for his attacking teammates, but they can't just blame Mbappe for everything; they have to take accountability for their own poor seasons. Mbappe is not the reason why the midfield could not control games or why the center backs forgot how to mark. This team isn't as good as they thought they were.
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