Not even Mourinho’s magic can help Madrid now 
Three long years ago, Real Madrid travelled north to Pamplona to put the finishing touches on its 31st league crown – which still remains the last time Madrid gave its fans something worth celebrating.
Fast forward to the present day, and Jose Mourinho’s side was once again back at the Reyno de Navarra stadium, but rather than wrapping up the silverware on Sunday, the current crop of galacticos essentially threw the towel in on the season, stepping to one side and inviting Barcelona to gather up the trophy with fully 17 games left to play.
The shock 1-0 loss to Osasuna now leaves Madrid trailing its great rival by a whopping seven points – which for all intents and purposes is eight given that Barca’s 5-0 romp over Real all but guarantees it the head-to-head tie-breaker in case of a tie – and barring a miracle will see the Catalan club sweep to its third successive championship coronation.
While Cristiano Ronaldo whined about the tactics employed by Madrid’s upstart conquerors on the weekend – all they did was “kick us” – the truth is that his club had looked woefully shorn of a cutting edge, generating just four shots on targets over the course of 90 minutes. That lack of accuracy does much to support Mourinho’s pleas for a new striker in the absence of Gonzalo Higuain, but also does little to suggest loan signing Emmanuel Adebayor, who made his debut off the bench Sunday, is the answer.
While the Madrid players were quick to profess that the title race is still alive and well - although one wonders exactly who they are really trying to convince of that when Barcelona has won a La Liga-record 15 games on the trot - uphill does not even begin to describe the kind of struggle Real will be in for to get back into it.
And truth be told, they know it. They’ve never turned around this kind of deficit against their arch-enemy before, and while Madrid has more points at this stage of the season under Mourinho than it did last year under Manuel Pellegrini, the fact that seemingly no one can stop Barca leaves Real in the uncomfortable knowledge that it could win every game for the rest of the season and it still probably wouldn’t suffice.
As one Real first-team player told The Guardian back in the summer, “We’re not the problem; Barcelona are.” 
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/s ... le1889011/
