Real Madrid: How Los Blancos Will Lose the League and Get Jose Mourinho Fired

Real Madrid dropped just eight points over their first 26 La Liga matches. That form propelled them to a massive 10-point lead at the top of the table as recently as last Friday.

Five days, two matches and four dropped points later, and Jose Mourinho's team find themselves just two losses away from parity with Barcelona. With five of their next seven opponents in the top half of the table, Madrid's championship hopes are hanging from a rapidly fraying rope.

And it's not going to hold.

Madrid's success through the first two-thirds of the season relied on their ability to win games even when they didn't play particularly well. Witness the February 26 match against Rayo Vallecano. Cristiano Ronaldo's brilliant back-heel goal is the highlight. What's forgotten, however, is that Rayo outplayed Los Blancos and might have won if not for a raft of squandered chances.

That winning mojo is starting to desert Madrid. For the second straight game, they looked to have the three points salted away only to watch their opposition knock in a late goal to steal points right off Mourinho's dinner plate.

Free kick goals from Santi Cazorla and Marcos Senna late in the last two matches signal that Madrid's old enemy, indiscipline, is rearing its ugly head at a time when they simply cannot afford the repercussions.

Esteban Granero's needless foul to provide Cazorla his chance and Madrid's reaction following Senna's goal shows that the team, and perhaps the coach, has learned little from their last two campaigns.

Mourinho was sent off for his reaction to Senna's goal. Sergio Ramos almost immediately lost his head and earned a second yellow with a ridiculous lashing out in open play. Mesut Ozil joined his teammate in the locker room with a straight red card for dissent following the Ramos sending off.

Referees make calls, sometimes bad ones, but the reaction of players is a result of their training. Real Madrid's squad under Jose Mourinho is not yet disciplined enough to see out a championship season in La Liga.

All the uproar over the dubious late foul will overshadow the fact that Madrid were not at their best in the match. That is four out of five games (excluding their dismantling of Espanyol) where Mourinho's team has not played at a level anywhere near their ability.

It's a particularly bad time in Madrid's season for poor form and ill discipline to join forces against the side. Anything less than their absolute best will result in more dropped points before season's end as they try to balance Champions League ties with a demanding stretch of domestic matches.

Suspensions for Mourinho, Ozil, Ramos and Lassana Diarra will complicate Madrid's next fixture against a Real Sociedad team they just managed to squeak by the first time around.

Midweek European matches precede Madrid's following two La Liga games. You can be sure that Osasuna and Valencia (both fighting to secure their own European ambitions next season) will be optimistic about taking points from a fatigued Ronaldo and company.

Then there's Barcelona. For Mourinho and Madrid, there always is. Under Mourinho, the men from the capital have never won at Camp Nou. It would be a brave bettor who put money on Madrid's chances if they travel to Catalonia with anything less than their current six point lead.

Even if they win-out between now and then, a loss in Barcelona would mean that La Liga's first tiebreaker belongs to Pep Guardiola's team. Under that scenario, Mourinho's side would still have to travel to an unbelievably hostile San Mames stadium to face Marcelo Bielsa's Athletic Bilbao team.

Bilbao's Basque-bred squad would take great pleasure in cementing their new-found reputation as giant killers by knocking the trophy out of Madrid's hands.

The looming collapse would be a final straw for Real Madrid president Florentino Perez. Madrid is not known for patience when it comes to its managers. If his side give back the league this term, Jose Mourinho will find that out. After all, his predecessor Manual Pellegrini was perfectly capable of finishing in second place.

And look where that got him.