Sure you fancy this, Xabi? After 90-plus minutes of breathless, controversial and utterly gripping football between Real Madrid and Barcelona, one thing is clear: whoever manages this Madrid team next has either got to be a madman, miracle-worker or masochist - and possibly a bit of all three.
Los Blancos and La Blaugrana played out a fourth wonderful contest of the campaign as Barca battered Madrid again and showed why they will run away with this La Liga title. With three games remaining after Sunday's 4-3 win, their lead stands at seven points. It is not inconceivable, then, that they win the league by double digits. That would hurt Madrid immensely, but it would be by no means an unfair reflection of the gap in quality between these two teams.
You just had to look at it. For 15 minutes, Madrid were in dreamland. Kylian Mbappe, who scored a hat-trick despite not playing that well bagged two early on, and the title race was back on. And then, reality set in, Barca started to play football, and it turned into something of a bloodbath.
Hansi Flick's side scored four goals in the first half without really breaking a sweat. Eric Garcia got the first off a set piece, Lamine Yamal added the next with another wonderful curled effort for his ever-growing catalogue of stunning goals, and Raphinha came up clutch again by netting two more incisive strikes off deadly counter-attacks.
Still, Madrid hung around. Mbappe completed his hat-trick in the second half while Vinicius Jr pulled off the magnificent feat of assisting his strike partner twice while also being totally anonymous in the scope of the game. Barca, though, had a fifth goal of their own VAR-d off and a decent penalty shout turned down; never has a one-goal win seemed so comprehensive.
Madrid cannot feel hard done by what is now almost certain to be a trophy-less campaign (unless you count the UEFA Super Cup or FIFA's Intercontinental Cup). Carlo Ancelotti is on the way out, and while it's not quite clear if he's jumping or being pushed, all parties seem pretty content with their parting of ways. Xabi Alonso, meanwhile, is the next man up, and he will walk into a club that has become pretty unstable.
Alonso will be able to call upon the most gifted attacking footballer in the world and others of varying degrees of brilliant who have no apparent connection to each other. Ancelotti - the coach with perhaps more gravitas than anyone in world football - could not manage this team in the end, so what makes Alonso think he can do the same? After all, the task in Madrid will not only be to catch this Barca team; he will also be expected to beat them, batter them, and establish supremacy in Spanish football once more.
As Sunday showed, not even three goals from one of the world's best can truly make that happen.
GOAL breaks down the winners & losers from the Olympic Stadium...
