What next for Real Madrid after Barcelona’s La Liga and Clasico triumph?

The fall may not have been deep, but the landing has been hard. A second trophy-less season for Real Madrid, the most successful La Liga and Champions League club, was confirmed in the worst way possible: a defeat at Barcelona, who, with their win, defended the Spanish title. Recommended Stories list of 4 items end of list Los Blancos kept the title race alive by their fingernails as they crawled their way to Catalonia, knowing that doing so could result in the cruellest of heartbreaks for their fans. And so it came to pass. Down by two at half-time at Camp Nou – and it could have been a lot more – hanging in there to limit the damage and humiliation was key, but the 2-0 defeat will have cut deeply for a club that has lifted 36 league and 15 Champions League titles. The defeat means Real will finish second this season, not an unusual circumstance in what has regularly been a two-horse race in La Liga. The manner, however, of their failure this season – including their quarterfinal exit from Europe’s top table – has left far more questions than answers in the Spanish capital after another season of discontent. How do Real solve a problem like Mbappe? The signing of Kylian Mbappe from Paris Saint-Germain two seasons ago was seen as a return to the days of collecting the world’s finest talents and collectively calling them “galacticos”. …