On 12 May, Real Madrid president Florentino Pérez called an emergency press conference. He had been in the eye of the storm for weeks: two seasons without titles, rumours of illness and and an increasingly angry and bitter fanbase.
Everyone expected he would announce his departure. Instead, came this: "I regret to tell you that I am not resigning". And then, almost as an afterthought, he announced that he was calling elections.
