Real Madrid need Copa, UCL titles to forget LaLiga failure - ESPN

Turns out Real Madrid manager Carlo Ancelotti was right again when discussing the LaLiga race.

«The difference between us and Barcelona isn't 11 points,» Ancelotti said on Monday. By Thursday that was true: it's 14.

The European champions are not the biggest team in Spain right now; they're not even the second biggest after Atletico Madrid overtook them on goal differential by scoring five against Cadiz on Wednesday. That's not so unusual — stay like this and Real's neighbours will have finished above them four times in the past six years — the question is how much it matters.

The obvious answer is: a lot. Or it should be. The actual answer might start to take shape on Saturday night in Seville when Real Madrid face Osasuna in the final of the Copa del Rey. And when the first leg of the Champions League semifinal with Manchester City comes to a close next Tuesday, we'll be closer to knowing.

— Stream on ESPN+: Real Madrid vs. Osasuna, Saturday, 3 p.m. ET — Stream on ESPN+: LaLiga, Bundesliga, more (U.S.)

A definitive answer will take another week; the consequences might be a little longer in becoming clear.

After defeat at Real Sociedad earlier this week, Nacho Fernandez insisted that if at the start of the season Madrid were offered the chance to be in this same position, they would take it.

«We would have signed up for it,» he said, only to pause for a moment and add: «Well, not in the league.»

And yet even then they might have done. Madrid have conceded multiple goals in their past three league matches: four against Girona, two against Almeria and two against Real Sociedad. They have lost three of the past six, have lost four of the past eight.

The first of those defeats was against Barcelona on March 19, which may