Are Madrid fans the most fickle in football?
"Of mankind we may say in general they are fickle, hypocritical and greedy of gain," wrote Machiavelli. The Italian thinker was clearly a Real Madrid fan, and his observation might well be one his countryman, Carlo Ancelotti, agrees with entirely.
The Real Madrid boo-boys have dominated the media in Spain in recent weeks, and only the 5-1 thrashing of Basel has afforded the population at large a fleeting respite: As soon as the team fails to hit the heights demanded by the Bernabeu, the focus on pitch will return to the stands again.
"You only sing when you're winning" is a common taunt at football grounds across Britain, but the Bernabeu doesn't even bother then: Anyone who has been to the stadium will concur that 99 times out of 100 it makes the famous library of Arsenal's Emirates sound like Metallica through an ear probe. Little wonder the players spend half of their time with the press asking that the fans actually support the team, win or lose.
Nacho, who, in his status as a cantera product unsullied by club politics, has yet to receive such treatment, and Alvaro Morata before him was immune to the bile of the Bernabeu. "All I ask is for a bit of unity between the fans and the team and that they get behind us," the youngster said after a performance that might well have hammered the final nail into the coffin of Alvaro Arbeloa's fading Real Madrid career.
It is a sentiment echoed by many of Real's players in recent weeks and by Ancelotti after Cristiano Ronaldo and Gareth Bale incurred the wrath of their home support during last season's 5-0 league rout of Rayo Vallecano. True, Real had lost successive games to Barcelona and Sevilla, which had left the side three points adrift of Atletico and two behind the eternal rival. But haranguing your side when three points behind the league leader, in March? Ancelotti said the jeers aimed at Ronaldo that evening were "incomprehensible," but the description can be evenly applied. Barcelona are no minnows, and Sevilla, under the meticulous tutorship of Unai Emery, went on to win the Europa League. It is hardly the same as getting thrashed by Alcorcon.
Karim Benzema noted in an interview on Wednesday that "all of the Real Madrid greats have been booed" at one point or another. The France striker, who has been on the receiving end of catcalls throughout his Real career, scored a glorious goal to wrap up Real's scintillating attacking display against Basel, but it won't be too long before he's back in the Bernabeu's bad books. As he noted, he is expected to score in every game as Real's main striker.
Ronaldo has done exactly that since his arrival at Real in 2009. Yet still, he has been the subject of admonishment under Jose Mourinho and Ancelotti. As Benzema rightly stated, nobody has escaped the misplaced wrath of the so-called home faithful: Zinedine Zidane, in his first six months at the club, was jeered simply because he wasn't instantly as good as the Bernabeu expected him to be. Even Alfredo di Stefano got his dose, incredibly. Perhaps five European Cups were not enough to sate the crowd, although the Argentinian's Real could hardly have hoped to beat Mars over two legs.
- Ramos: Casillas is 'not a robot' and is affected by boos
- Rigg: Real Madrid send message in UCL opener
Surely Real Madrid is the only club in the world at which players face this level of hostility from their own support. Expectation is high every season -- as are transfer outlays -- but the simple fact remains that although the Bernabeu expects the team to win 7-0 every week, there are 11 players on the other side of the halfway line who would rather they didn't. The majority of teams in the division cannot hope to win the league, much less the continent's top prize, but their fans cheer them to the rafters every home game nonetheless. Many home supports even do so when their team is losing -- a concept as alien at the Bernabeu as tying a jumper around your waist when you have perfectly good shoulders to drape it over.
Fans of most teams will never see Ronaldo strutting his stuff, or have a World Cup-winning goalkeeper between the sticks, or see their club snap up Brazil 2014's Golden Boot winner on a whim. They'll be lucky to witness moments as sublime as James' back-heel for Nacho's goal or the interplay between Ronaldo and Benzema leading up to the Frenchman's strike once in a season, let alone twice in a night.
This team won the Champions League a little more than 100 days ago -- after a 12-year wait -- and threw in a Copa del Rey final victory over Barcelona for good measure. Most supporters would give them the benefit of the doubt after 270 minutes of league football.
That the stories about Ronaldo wanting to return to his first love, Manchester United, refuse to go away should serve as a warning to the Bernabeu: There is only so much players can endure. If your boss spent all day heckling you from his office door, you might well decide to seek employment elsewhere. And as Gab Marcotti noted this week, that is exactly how Ronaldo is starting to see his role at Real Madrid -- a job, rather than an extremely well-paid hobby. Whether Casillas is willing to spend his autumn years under a blanket of abuse is also open to question. You never know what you've got until it's not there, as the saying goes.
Pepe opined after the defeat to Atletico last weekend that the fans "are always right." Real Madrid supporters are customers like any other, but you sometimes have to wonder if they realize how lucky they are to shop at the Bernabeu.