Real Madrid's terrible loss to Arsenal hurt in more ways than one. It was less about the fact that Real Madrid lost, and more about how the team played when they lost. It was like looking at a bunch of youth football players who are only taught to be more aggressive if they need to win.
It was honestly shocking. I could not believe it. Real Madrid lost 5-1 on aggregate to a team that, although was excellent on the night, does not match Real Madrid's quality on paper.
Real Madrid are missing their leaders. The Toni Krooses, the Karim Benzemas, all of them are sorely lacking in this brilliant and talented group of players.
They only have one of those players right now in Luka Modric, and according to recent news, his match against Arsenal may have been his last in the Champions League.
Luka Modric should continue at Real Madrid for another season, but he may not
According to Arancha Rodriguez of COPE, Modric may have played his last match for Real Madrid in their favorite competition.
The post on X was hard to look at, and hard to believe. Modric should stay at Real Madrid for another season. If he leaves, not only do Real Madrid lose yet another leader, but they also lose one of the very few players who can bring some sort of control to Real Madrid.
Bringing him off the bench in these last two seasons has been mostly fantastic. Modric comes on, calms the game down and sees Real Madrid to victory. That happened more last season than this year, but that is not because of Modric. That is only because of how bad Real Madrid have been defending leads and scoring goals.
This makes it worse. If this is truly Modric's last season at Real Madrid, the club should have done everything they can to win the whole thing. Or at least try to. Against Arsenal, the effort was missing. Tactics were missing. It was a let down.