Congratulations, Real Madrid - you are football's most PATHETIC club! Los Blancos show their true colours as world's pettiest sporting institution with Copa del Rey disgrace

Taking the final alone in isolation, Madrid still managed to soil themselves on international television. Proceeding to wipe their backsides along the relaid turf of the Estadio La Cartuja should only add to the hangxiety-like embarrassment they need to feel.

There's never been a quiet Clasico on record, and those contested in knockout competitions are often the ones where tempers boil over. That's fair and part of football - we don't want to lose that emotion, we want players to care the way fans do. But this was a whole new level of ridiculous.

If it were only Lucas Vazquez and Jude Bellingham's red cards for us to divulge, that would have been reason alone to lambast Madrid. Antonio Rudiger's antics are what will likely ensure this match is remembered as 'The disgrace of Cartuja', one which should boast its own special Wikipedia page.

After Kylian Mbappe was judged to have fouled Eric Garcia by flailing a hand in the defender's face, the Madrid bench combusted in fury, and no one more so than their overly-emotional centre-back. The Germany international began hurling what appeared to be ice on the pitch towards referee Ricardo de Burgos Bengoetxea. As the official came over to brandish the red card, Rudiger completely lost control and had to be restrained by a member of Madrid's coaching team, his eyes bulging in maniacal fury.

It's an infamous picture that will stay with Rudiger for the rest of his career, one which encapsulates Madrid's utter rejection of sporting respect, and his apology is effectively worthless. No wonder he is now facing a ban of up to 12 games.

The probability of Saturday's final going down as anything other than outrageous was near zero considering how Madrid handled the build-up, which began with a dressing down of referee De Burgos Bengoetxea on their in-house TV channel. The club, not for the first time, assembled a video package of supposed errors and hinted at bias against them. Madrid later asked for the officiating team to be replaced just days before kick-off and had to refute claims they were considering a boycott.

De Burgos Bengoetxea broke down in tears pre-match when he revealed how Madrid's campaign against him had affected his personal life. "When your child goes to school and is told his father is a 'thief' and comes home crying, it's really tough," he said.

"What I'm doing is trying to educate my son, to tell him that his father is honest, that he makes mistakes like any other athlete. It's a real pain, and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. The day I leave here, I want my son to be proud of what his father was and what refereeing is, which has given us so many values.

"What many of our colleagues are going through, not just in professional football but also in grassroots football, is unfair. Everyone should reflect on where they want to go, what they want from sports and football."

Naturally, Madrid's actions were widely condemned, yet there's no doubt De Burgos Bengoetxea would have been in mind to officiate the game a little differently than he had planned, and no one would be able to blame him. Even despite that, Carlo Ancelotti's side lost fair and square, and still accumulated three red cards. Nice one, lads.

The pent-up pettiness ready to burst at the seam had been brewing within Madrid for a while, it's worth noting. There have been week-to-week grievances which have long alluded to this, but the most notable flashpoint over the last 12 months was their handling of the 2024 Ballon d'Or ceremony.

Off the back of winning a Champions League and La Liga double last season, Vinicius Jr was the frontrunner to take home the Golden Ball. There appeared to be brief competition from team-mate Bellingham, though England's defeat to Spain in the final of the European Championship seemed to have ended his hopes.

The stage seemed set for Vinicius to be crowned as the world's best player; it was, many believed, a formality. And then, with under 48 hours before the ceremony in Paris, the whispers began. Rodri, fresh off another Premier League win with Manchester City and having formed a core part of that Spain side which ousted Bellingham and Co, was in the frame. His importance in victories for club and country would have been the top line of his press release for any sort of campaign.

On the morning of October 28, news began to circulate that Rodri had indeed been voted into first place ahead of Vinicius. Madrid made their minds up pretty sharpish - their entourage would no longer fly over to France for the event. Of course, the footballing world didn't look too kindly upon their childish behaviour, with comparisons to Donald Trump among the most pointed judgements.

What's happened to Madrid this season feels a lot like the entire club getting their just desserts. They have already finished as runners-up to Barcelona in the Copa del Rey and Supercopa de Espana, while they trail their Clasico foes by four points in La Liga with five games to go.

Their Champions League demolition at the hands of Arsenal, who are still relatively unexperienced at this level, had the rumblings of an era shift, and the club's longstanding support of the European Super League has lurked in the background like a malignant tumour, too. The late goals which have bailed them out of trouble so many times before have dried up, even despite their increased firepower.

"We put in many crosses, but this year we don't have a pure striker like Joselu, a guy that can win those kind of duels," was Thibaut Courtois' recent assessment of their tactics. Trying to assemble football's Avengers has come at the cost of building a coherent team with structure and purpose (taking Trent Alexander-Arnold from Liverpool won't help this problem, by the way).

There were already more than enough reasons to feel a lack of sympathy for Madrid heading into the Copa final, and now they've made it totally impossible to have any sort of remorse for how their campaign has unfolded.

By the end of 2023-24, Madrid stood tall as the ultimate club. They had won a record 15th European Cup featuring more last-gasp comebacks and poached arguably the world's best player on a free transfer. Their arrogance, though annoying, wasn't without warrant. But that schtick can only be maintained when you're winning, and nobody wins for long. There's always another team ready to take the reins, to knock you off your perch.

Madrid's failed 'remontada' against Arsenal foreshadowed this most recent collapse. Both the club and Spanish national press - which often work in synergy at this time of year - built themselves up for a fall. The players didn't have the tools to mount such an unlikely comeback, and the young Gunners didn't blink in this game of chicken.

Barcelona, parallel to the north Londoners, are similarly built with plenty of budding homegrown stars and did not flinch either. For all of Madrid's riches and star power, they have lost the fear factor that had Europe in a chokehold, and a soul-searching inquest is needed to find it again.

Ancelotti will pay the price for Madrid's disappointing season, and he's already made plans to exit to Brazil before his current side head to this summer's Club World Cup anyway. He will nevertheless depart as a club legend, one whose relaxed style and man-management allowed them to be so successful, though equally he has only enabled this culture of cringe to fester and grow.

Bayer Leverkusen boss Xabi Alonso is almost certain to take over, and he ought to provide a fruitful blend of managing egos as a former Madrid player with tactical savviness this lopsided squad is in need of. Loud and brash personalities in the Santiago Bernabeu dressing room need taming if they are to function as a team again.

It's not just the players and managers who require a reality check. Upstairs, president Florentino Perez has been stoking and fanning the flames of a fire that has now engulfed the club into an inferno of infamy. He is not the chess-master, rather the disruptor. In his 78-year-old ways, Perez is unlikely to change though, and so those at ground level must do the work for him.

The world is fed up of Madrid making noise - their football needs to do the talking.