After his team had been humiliated in the only game that matters, Real Madrid manager Rafael Benitez said, "We are all responsible."
Maybe. But only one person on any team is ever held accountable – the coach.
Real lost 4-0 at home to Barcelona on Saturday. It watched worse than it sounds, and I'm sure it felt worse than it watched.
As he came off late in the game, the Bernabeu crowd saluted Andres Iniesta – whom you'll recall plays for Barcelona. An ovation as unsubtle and ironic jeering. Only the Clasico offers you so many new wrinkles on old chestnuts.
It's been a weird year in international soccer. Not quite dogs and cats living together in harmony, but close.
Fielding a team made up largely of mailmen and subway buskers, Ireland just qualified for Euro 2016. The Netherlands is out and Ireland is in. There is no sane world in which it should've turned out that way.
Currently, the best team in the Premiership is Leicester City. Four years ago, it finished ninth in the second division. Manchester City (sitting third) spends Leicester's annual budget on jet rentals and catering.
On form, the best player in the Premiership is Leicester's Algerian winger Riyad Mahrez. The 24-year-old was purchased two years ago for less than $1-million.
Three months ago, no one knew his name. Like, no one. Today, he leads the Premiership in combined points. This sort of thing occasionally happens in other sports – a team or a player come out of nowhere – but not in soccer. Everyone lives on a featureless plain. You can see the talent coming a long way off.
It's been 20 years since any team outside the big four (United, City, Chelsea, Arsenal) won the Premier League. You keep waiting for this competitive equilibrium to re-establish itself. But Leicester keeps rabbiting along, and you start hoping that maybe this is the year things change. Maybe we've entered a period of chaotic competitive balance.
Barcelona is the cure for that delusion.
When manager Pep Guardiola left three years ago, he took with him some measure of the Barca magic. No club in history had become so fetishized. Barcelona didn't really play you. It played against its own standard.
As fluid as Barcelona was on the field, Guardiola built the internal structure of the club on rigid, socialistic values. No one was any better than anyone else. All that mattered was the system.
Having got Lionel Messi to buy into that ethos, it became impossible for any other player to buck it. If the best player in the world isn't moaning about the number of touches he gets, how could you? Barcelona was more than a team. It was an experiment in hierarchies.
Once Guardiola left, the rivets began loosening. His chosen successor grew gravely ill and was forced to leave almost immediately. The next boss had only one real bona fide – he was FOL (a Friend of Lionel's). He lasted a year.
Barcelona continued to win, but less often. Sadly, you could see it trying.
The club made two major purchases in the post-Guardiola era – forwards Neymar and Luis Suarez.
Aside from buckets of skill, neither seemed to fit the Barcelona mould. Both were look-at-me types with authority issues.
Messi continued to lead. The other two bobbed about in his wake. It wasn't as intricate a style of play as we remembered, but it was still a winning one.
Two months ago, Messi injured his knee. He's been out since. It's the first lengthy absence of his career.
Most expected Barcelona to fall apart without him. Instead, led by Neymar, it has returned to that seamless brand of soccer we instinctively associate with Barcelona.
On Saturday, you could see the difference in approach between the two biggest sports clubs on the planet.
Real fills positions with the best possible players. It's not a unit. It's an all-star team.
Barcelona gets the right sort of players to enact a system that never really changes. That's why so many on the squad come from the club's own youth system. They've been learning how to do it this way for 15 years before they get to the first team.
Reaching back 30 years to the time Johan Cruyff served as the club's manager/philosopher king, Barcelona has been building an idea just as much as a football club.
It is once again the best team in the world. And once again, it's not even close. Neymar and Suarez have combined for 19 goals in the past nine games. Once Messi returns to full-time duty, they get even better. The Argentine has proven before that he feels no need to impose himself on a winning formula.
Like night following the day, Barcelona thriving means Real must enter a period of despair. Benitez will be fired from his managerial position, but not now. Maybe if he'd lost 1-0 or 2-1, he'd be offered the mercy of a quick professional death. No, he'll be made to truly suffer for 4-0 at home.
The team will be turned over. Incomprehensible amounts of money will be spent. What's bad for Real is good for agents and neutrals. It means things are about to get silly.
Barcelona's legend has grown so monolithic, you spend a lot of time waiting for the backlash. Surely, people will eventually get sick of this side, despite how good they are (or perhaps because of it)?
Surely, people would like to see more Leicesters – not nearly as accomplished or fun to watch, but punching so far above their weight?
That would be the North American sports sensibility – pull for the impossible odds.
They do it differently overseas. They've built an ecosystem that ensures the familiar names will always be on top. They like it that way.
That means it's not going to work out for Leicester. Not in the long run. And not ever.