REAL MADRID
Real Madrid frustrated at the FIFA virus and the international break
There is a general sense of annoyance at the club from the capital as plenty of players are returning tired from international duty.
It’s nothing new, but it’s a recurring sense of annoyance at Real Madrid regarding the international breaks: the FIFA virus regularly leaves their players tired and with very little recovery time ahead of games in LaLiga, which is the case again ahead of the tie Los Blancos have against Sevilla.
The Andalucian team are going through a tough patch and have a new manager, Diego Alonso, but that corner of Spain is always a tough place for visiting teams and even more so for Madrid, who have a rivalry against Sevilla. Precisely ahead of this potential banana skin of a game, Madrid will be without a variety of key players in the days before kick-off: Valverde, Rodrygo, Vini Jr and Rüdiger. The four players featured in games across the Americas and will likely only have just hours to prepare before making the journey to Seville.
Meaningless friendlies anger Real Madrid
The part of the season puts players under a lot of pressure to compete: there are three international breaks before Christmas, with one in September, October and November, a fact which serves only to add more games to an already bulging calendar. Cross-continent journeys are common as players are swept away and sometimes, like in the case of Germany who took on Mexico in the USA, meaningless friendlies are played in distant locations. Edson Álvarez wouldn’t agree, mind you.
Real Madrid understand the importance of international football, but they also believe that more should be done to take the clubs’ schedule into account and not vice-versa: the clubs pay the salaries and when the physical problems come, they pay the price too.
Guardiola calls schedule “too much” and says amount of games is “why there are so many injuries”
It’s not a criticism that comes solely from Real Madrid, either. After finding out the severity of the injuries suffered to both Courtois and Militão, Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola complained when De Bruyne fell to injury for a number of weeks: “in my first season at Barcelona I had 25 days to prepare the first official game. Now they give you ten, five days... in the end look how many knee injuries.”
People get injured and will continue to get injured because the show must go on”, Pep continued, “and if Courtois isn’t there, there’ll be another one; if Militão isn’t there, there’ll be another one; if Kevin isn’t there, there’ll be another one. The Champions League finishes and they go with their national teams for two or three weeks, next year there is a Club World Cup, go to United States and play a 37-team Club World Cup when before it was Copa Libertadores and the Champions League. It’s too much and that’s why you have to adapt, keep going and train little.”
Madrid suffer ‘injuries, tiredness and problems’ due to international football
In the preview of the game against Girona, Real Madrid boss Carlo Ancelotti spoke about the ruthless calendar for teams and players, and the answer came in response to a question about the opposition that had nothing to do with overworking players, showing clearly that Carletto had the timetable on his mind: “what affects teams the most are the international competitions, because we have injuries, tiredness and problems to recover. I look at the calendar [and] there are players who come back on the evening of the 19th and we play against Sevilla on the 21st. If the plane is delayed I have to meet the player in Seville.”
Ancelotti referred to the four aforementioned players: Vini Jr, Rodrygo, Rüdiger and Valverde, whose absence has annoyed Real Madrid.; at the club they also think that the tiredness has depleted the level of club football, as without fresh players, the football does not come as easily. At Madrid they talk about the situation as “nonsense”, as well as describing the players who come back after huge, transatlantic journeys (the Montevideo - Madrid flight, which Valverde, Rodrygo and Vini are on takes 12 hours) as “knackered”.
Real Madrid play Sevilla at the Estadio Ramón Sánchez-Pizjuán in Seville, Spain, on Saturday 21 October 2023, with kick-off at 12:30 p.m. ET / 9:30 a.m. PT. Follow the game live on AS USA.