Wolfsburg vs. Real Madrid: Spanish Media Takes Aim at Zinedine Zidane's Team

Real Madrid felt the heat of the Spanish press following their 2-0 UEFA Champions League defeat to Wolfsburg on Wednesday, being described as "bad, bad, bad" and "awful."

As reported by MailOnline's Joe Strange, AS labelled the quarter-final first leg defeat at the Volkswagen Arena a "betrayal," while Marca's front-page headline called on the Madrid players to respond or leave: "He who doesn’t believe in the comeback can leave."

After a terrible display of defending that saw first-half goals conceded from Ricardo Rodriguez and Max Arnold, Zinedine Zidane's men now have a huge task on their hands to turn the tie around next week at the Santiago Bernabeu.  

AS noted that only 17 per cent of teams have turned over a two-goal deficit from the first leg of a Champions League quarter-final.

It was supposed to be a relatively easy quarter-final draw for Los Blancos, given that Wolfsburg are eighth in the Bundesliga.

Per Strange, Catalan newspaper Mundo Deportivo described Wolfsburg as a "modest club" and opted for "Bundes-thrash" as their headline.

They did not stop there, either, with AS' Jesus Balseiro providing more of Mundo Deportivo's report: "Disaster, failure, catastrophe...any of these words serves to define what happened to Real Madrid in Wolfsburg."

And certainly Real should have done better.

They were undone by some excellent work at times. Julian Draxler in particular was terrific, per Bleacher Report's Sam Tighe:

But the defending for Arnold's goal was atrocious, with Marcelo caught out of position at left-back and Sergio Ramos, Pepe and Danilo all culpable for not picking up the midfielder's run.

Given the highs of Saturday's 2-1 El Clasico win against Barcelona in La Liga, few could have predicted a resounding defeat for Real at the hands of Wolfsburg.

The postmortem continued across Europe as well, with French outlet L'Equipe describing the match and result as "Real's nightmare," while Italy's La Gazzetta dello Sport accused the Spanish side of taking a "nap," per Balseiro.

Zidane will need to refocus his side for the weekend's home La Liga clash against Eibar before they attempt to make things right against Wolfsburg on Tuesday.

Despite the Clasico victory, the league title is all but out of reach this season, with leaders Barca still seven points clear, thus the Champions League is unquestionably the priority for Real.

If they can engineer a turnaround against Wolfsburg, Real will go into the last-four stage full of confidence they can win an 11th European Cup.

If they fail to do so, the 2015-16 season will be written of as something of a disaster for the world's biggest club.