A crisis at the self-styled greatest soccer club in the world comes with a checklist. Real Madrid ticked off some, but not all, of the key points in the last six days.
A defeat on their home ground? Yes, 4-3 against Schalke 04 in the Champions League. The derision of supporters? Check. The booing and hissing that had peppered the last two months was more sustained, louder, against Schalke.
The head coach's position in jeopardy? Maybe, but only in so far as Madrid are a club with a notorious history of high turnover in the job Carlo Ancelotti currently holds, and some of his certainties are being challenged.
Internal divisions? Perhaps, if the body language of Cristiano Ronaldo, apparently exasperated by the passing of teammates in the hectic loss to Schalke, could be interpreted as arguments, or if the way captain Iker Casillas sternly advised Ronaldo to applaud fans after last Tuesday's loss against the Bundesliga team could be viewed as a squabble between the superstar and the skipper.
In short, Madrid's crisis is at the moment a pseudo-crisis, a meltdown still in the rehearsal phase. Losing to Schalke, and letting in four goals at home, hurt morale. It did not cost the reigning European champions its place in the Champions League: 4-3 on the night still meant 5-4 to Madrid over the two legs of the last-16 tie.
By the end of Sunday, and a comfortable 2-0 win, and rather more coherent performance against Levante, the theatre of jeers was again the Bernabeu stadium of light clapping and cheers. Madrid remain only a point off the top of La Liga. Win against Barcelona at Camp Nou next Sunday, and Madrid will be two points clear at the summit.
But lose there, and the crisis gets real, and all the gestures that filled Madrid's diary over the last five days will be read as signals, urgent questions: How much faith has the president Florentino Perez in Ancelotti?
Perez called a sudden press conference last Thursday, of the sort that have become unusual as his second spell as the club's senior decision-maker approaches its seventh year. "Whatever happens, Ancelotti will stay," Perez declared, anticipating reports that the outcome of next weekend's Clasico would act directly as judge on Ancelotti's immediate future.
Madrid have genuine worries, and they start in goal. Ancelotti left keeper Casillas on the substitutes' bench against Levante, but had indicated his captain, who made some errors - and some fine saves - against Schalke, will be back against Barca.
Up front, Ronaldo's radar remains askew, at least by his elevated standards as a finisher. He struck the Levante post early in Sunday's game, and though he did some of the best work involved in Madrid's second goal, his angled shot for that one brushed the boot Gareth Bale on its way into the net, and so is most likely to be attributed to Bale, not to Ronaldo.
These details matter to a player who thrives on his towering scoring statistics. Just as Barcelona's Lionel Messi is regaining superhuman form, Ronaldo is in a relative slump. The Argentinian, who scored both Barca's goals against Eibar on Saturday, has now overtaken the Portuguese as La Liga's leading scorer this season, on 32 to Ronaldo's 30.
Yet Bale may have needed the boost of a goal even more than Ronaldo. Perez had directly addressed the issue of his dipping form - "He is one of the best players in the world," the president snapped at reporters - and the volley which Bale struck to put Madrid 1-0 ahead against Levante was the most expensive player in soccer history's first goal for nine matches.
His gesture to celebrate involved moving his hands to his ears, as if to block out the whistling he has suffered from some spectators at the Bernabeu recently. You can bet he heard the crowd loud and clear when many of them cheered a clever pass he made later in the match.
What Levante were never likely to test was Bale's positional discipline when Madrid do not have the ball, his defensive diligence. Those are the issues that still concern Madrid's coaching staff, and they are areas Barcelona will certainly examine in the Clasico.
Irascible though Perez was at times in his pre-crisis press conference, he did point out a simple truth: Madrid have lost authority lately largely because senior players have been injured. Sergio Ramos is now back, ready to partner Pepe in the center of defense. They are the pair Ancelotti would want to face Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar at Camp Nou.
As important: Luka Modric is fit again, lively, intelligent and was the source of many of Madrid's most fluent passages of play against Levante. If Barcelona envy any member of Madrid's midfield it is Modric.
He is also Bale's closest ally in the dressing-room and the man whose passes Bale most appreciates. That means the president regards Modric as a good ally. Ancelotti simply knows Modric is an essential, if understated, part of his best possible team.
