After Christmas, Real Madrid began regrouping and immediately headed to Dubai in the Middle East for a training camp.
In Dubai, Real Madrid played a friendly, but none of their key players, including Yang Yang and Suarez, took part. They eventually lost 2–4 to AC Milan, ending their final match of 2014 with a defeat.
Everyone knew, however, that Real Madrid had not taken the match seriously at all. They had played it purely for the three million euros.
In the second half of the season, Real Madrid would still face tremendous pressure. First came the two-front battle of the Copa del Rey and the league, followed by the Champions League resuming, with a league match postponed because of the FIFA Club World Cup in between. This made Real Madrid's schedule extremely congested, so the short training camp during the winter break became especially important.
During such an important training period—one that could even be described as a race against time—how could Ancelotti possibly go all out in a friendly?
Real Madrid were not the only ones who took it lightly. The media and fans did too.
Instead, as 2014 drew to a close, major media outlets began announcing their year-end awards, successfully attracting the attention of media and fans around the world.
The first to announce its results was the final issue of the venerable British football magazine World Soccer in 2014. It selected its Player of the Year, Team of the Year, and Head Coach of the Year.
The selection process involved inviting one hundred authoritative journalists from around the world to choose their own top ten players of the year and rank them from first to tenth, awarding ten points for first place and one point for tenth.
Yang Yang won Player of the Year by an