And on top of that, they have Joan Garcia!

The headline quote was delivered to me by a Real Madrid supporter with a sigh, a mixture of annoyance and resignation: "And now, on top of everything, Barça has Joan García." The Catalan goalkeeper had an outstanding performance against Villarreal and kept his team in the game during difficult moments against an opponent who, despite being down to 10 men, never gave up, aided by errors in the Barça defense and some incredibly silly turnovers in midfield. Barça has a goalkeeper, and one for the long haul, something crucial for being a successful team, as Real Madrid has demonstrated, for example.

Courtois and Mbappé are the only ones preventing Xabi Alonso's team from completely plunging off the cliff, and against Sevilla they played—and that was saying something—worse than ever. The decline is as evident as the toxic atmosphere, the tense ambiance, the apathy on the pitch, and the despair in the stands. A Molotov cocktail that always seems on the verge of exploding, and whose first sparks have already reached Vinicius, who left for the bench to a chorus of boos. His immediate response was to delete the image of himself in the white shirt from his social media and replace it with the Brazilian one. Another childish act, indeed. It's not the 17 matches (14 with Real Madrid) without scoring, though that's part of it, but gestures like laughing in Talavera, and the fact that it's adding insult to injury because it's impossible to forget the scene he caused when he was substituted in the Clásico, that have truly marked him.

There was a before and after that snub: the club—that is, Florentino Pérez—turned a blind eye, leaving Xabi Alonso alone and isolated, and the manager lost his authority in the eyes of the fans and, above all, in the dressing room, which perfectly understood that he wasn't in charge. Since then, Hansi Flick's team has won all eight subsequent matches. They left the Bernabéu five points behind and have gone on holiday as winter champions with a four-point lead, while Xabi Alonso continues to struggle, unable to find the right formula, with players like Bellingham sulking and practically invisible, and with Vinicius already at odds with the fans. All the signs are terrible. And now, to top it all off, Barça also has a goalkeeper for both the present and the future. Christmas, definitively, belongs to Barça, not Real Madrid.