Six months after Real Madrid won a record 31st league title, the club is in crisis and anyone who predicted a third straight championship would now be laughed at.

After a 4-3 defeat at home to Sevilla on Sunday, the most successful club in Spanish football history has dropped to fifth in the standings and Barcelona, its traditional rival, is six points clear of the field and nine ahead of Madrid.

With the two powerhouse teams due to face each other in Barcelona on Saturday, that deficit could easily turn out to be 12 points. Even with the season less than halfway through, that means little chance of another Madrid title.

The fans are calling for the heads of president Ramon Calderon and coach Bernd Schuster.

After the defeat to Sevilla, their eighth of the season, news came that midfielder Mahamadou Diarra would join Ruud van Nistelrooy on the sidelines for the rest of the season with a serious knee injury.

Schuster risked more animosity from the Madrid followers yesterday when he said that the team currently had little hope of winning in Barcelona. Even if he thinks that, it doesn't do morale any good to admit it.

"At the Camp Nou now, it's not possible to win," Schuster said. "Barcelona are playing really well there and it's their year. We can just try and hopefully play a good game."

That is the last thing the Madrid fans want to hear, and they are furious about another thing, too.

Madrid's problems come at a time when Spanish football has reached a new high after the national team's Euro 2008 triumph. Yet Madrid seems be ignoring young Spanish players in the transfer market.

Unveiled on Thursday, Klaas-Jan Huntelaar is the sixth Dutch player on Madrid's squad, the others being Van Nistelrooy, Arjen Robben, Wesley Sneijder, Rafael van der Vaart and Royston Drenthe.

Madrid spent e27 million ($34 million) on Huntelaar and, on the day he was revealed to the media in his team shirt, the club's youth director quit.

Hours after Jose "Michel" Gonzalez resigned, a group of Madrid fans shouted "Mas cantera, menos de fuera!" - or "More from the youth team, less from outside!" - suggesting that Calderon was effectively ignoring the club's youth system.

Throughout the summer, Madrid was also linked with Manchester United winger Cristiano Ronaldo, who is Portuguese.

It doesn't help Schuster that he played for Madrid's most hated rivals - Barcelona and Atletico Madrid. That means the fact that the German midfielder scored 13 times in 63 games for Real Madrid counts for little now that the team is well behind Barcelona in the title race.

Schuster's rival at Barcelona, Pep Guardiola, by contrast, is Spanish and was a huge favourite with the fans when he played for the club.

Six months ago, Barcelona were in the same sort of mess Madrid are in now and finished a distant 18 points in the Spanish title race.

The Catalan club found the solution to their own crisis were already inside the club - reserve team coach Guardiola - and the Spanish star inspired a run of 11 wins in a row to take a firm hold on the league leadership and become one of the first teams into the last 16 of the Champions League.

While Guardiola is applauded for his tactics and his inspirational leadership, Schuster appears to be hanging on to his job by his fingernails and maybe his only chance of staying at the club is a victory Camp Nou on Saturday.

If he doesn't think much of those chances, it hardly inspires his players. Like the fans, the man who appointed him, Calderon, won't be pleased to hear the coach's words either.

Calderon narrowly won a vote of confidence at the club's general assembly on Sunday and is looking for something the placate the fans.

Firing Schuster might be the answer. Whether he does it before the game against Barcelona or risks both their futures on that result is a gamble he will have to think about all week.