Real Madrid's nightmare - Is it over, or has it just begun?
The only good news for Real Madrid from last night's horror story is that this season is well and truly over.
In Spain, they call every key game a "final", not just the ones that lead to trophies. There have been three finals for Real Madrid in the last one week then, and three defeats.
On the 5th of March, Madrid's season came to a premature end. In the space of a single week, they have bid adieu to all three competitions - defeated in the Copa del Rey final by Barcelona, had their LaLiga hopes crushed by the Catalans again three days later, and finally, unceremoniously eliminated from the Champions League in the Round of 16 (for the first time since 2009-10) by Ajax.
Their season has been disrupted by two teams that are born of the same philosophy. In fact, the Ajax captain, Frenkie de Jong is halfway there to Camp Nou; he joins Barcelona on 1st July later this year.
This season is the story of the undoing of a team who stood as the best team in Europe for 1,392 days. The downfall was not unexpected. There was no one to fill the giant shoes of Cristiano Ronaldo after he departed for Turin.
Zinedine Zidane's project had been successful, but Julen Lopetegui failed to maintain it. The former Spain manager, who was disgracefully removed from the helm of the national team two days before their World Cup campaign, faced a similar fate in Madrid.
Santiago Solari was subsequently handed charge, but he was hardly a significant upgrade.
Then two weeks ago, the scandal of Sergio Ramos deliberately getting a booking broke out. The club captain hoped to miss last night's game against Ajax so that he could be available for the quarterfinal game. Perhaps he didn't consider the second leg at home to be worthy of being called a "final".
So miss it he did - the Spaniard was observed recording for his documentary for Amazon Prime on the sidelines. There is doubt that the video will make it to the final film, seeing that it wasn't the best of nights for his team.
It was clear last night that when Real Madrid pushed forward to find goals, they left huge gaps for Ajax to exploit. Would it have been different for Real with the centre-back on the pitch? We may never know. This is only matter for speculation and Madrid-supporting pundits to give enraged monologues on.
What lies ahead for Los Blancos? A crisis has broken out at a club that needs to re-evaluate its path going forward. It will be a painful three months from now till the end of the season, in which Real Madrid have nothing to play for. The fans have nothing to watch on the pitch either; they will be focusing on the management in the upper tiers.
Come summer, Florentino Perez will be expected to step out in the market and make some star signings, as one has come to expect in keeping with their Galacticos philosophy. The start must be with the manager, because it is clear now for Solari - if it wasn't already - that his time is up.
It's not that Real Madrid haven't tried. It's that they just haven't had the same inevitability of goal-scoring about them ever since Ronaldo left.
This is a team that needs freshness. They have fallen from a peak into a deep abyss, and it's hard to place a finger on specific things that need to change. A lot of work is due in the capital of Spain, but there are no results to be seen until August.