Real Madrid coach Rafa Benitez admitted he was hurting and called for unity at the club after the 4-0 defeat to Barcelona in Saturday's La Liga Clasico at the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu.
Luis Suarez and Neymar had Barca 2-0 up at the break, with Blaugrana captain Andres Iniesta making it three just after half-time, and substitute Lionel Messi being involved as Suarez wrapped up the scoring late on.
The game was a disaster from start to finish for Madrid, with fans at the Bernabeu angrily whistling their team throughout the second half, and even making a traditional "white handkerchief" protest against club president Florentino Perez.
Speaking at his post-game news conference, a crestfallen Blancos coach admitted he deserved a share of the blame for what had happened, while saying they must quickly turn the page and move on.
"Whenever you lose, we all have part of the blame," Benitez said. "It hurts us a lot, to lose like this against Barcelona. But we must be united, work, improve things we must improve, and go into the next game to get the three points we need to fight for La Liga.
"We need to recover our team quickly, their spirits, for the next game. There is a long way to go, we must get back to playing as well as we were when we were unbeaten."
The usually cautious Benitez had picked a galactico-heavy team, with all of Cristiano Ronaldo, Gareth Bale, James Rodriguez and Karim Benzema picked in attack.
Asked if this was the preferred XI of the Bernabeu hierarchy -- a clear reference to club chief Perez -- Benitez said he had chosen a team full of quality but the gameplan had not worked out.
"I try and manage the group I have as best as possible," he said. "In this case to start players who have quality to do better than we did today. We must all be responsible for it not going well, now look for unity in the group, to try and sort this in our next game.
"Obviously it did not turn out as planned -- did not go well. We wanted to press and attack, to win the ball high up the pitch, and have possession of the ball. The idea was to use players with experience and quality in a game of this level."
Rafa claimed the game's key point came just after half-time, when Madrid came out keen to get back into the game but left-back Marcelo fluffed a chance to make it 2-1 to halve the deficit.
"The Marcelo chance at the start of the second chance is the key point in the game, if that was a goal," he said. "At half-time we talked about improving, and looking for a goal, all the team were raging to start and we began the second half well.
"But with this result, when you lose like this, the team were not able to react to their goals. There is not much to say really, we must work to lift spirits and get back on track in the next game."
A Benitez team had not lost by four clear goals since 1999, when his Extremadura minnows were hammered 5-0 by Atletico Madrid. The former Valencia, Liverpool, Chelsea and Napoli coach said individual errors had been punished very clinically by Barca.
"We made mistakes, we paid dearly for them against a good team, with quality," he said. "We coughed up some balls, and a good team like them can do you damage.
"We will analyse this, but most important is to get the group back together and focused on moving forward and getting three points in the next game."