Carlo Ancelotti has criticised the Spanish Football Federation and La Roja’s recent friendlies with Equatorial Guinea and South Africa.
The Real Madrid boss has other international players unavailable for Saturday’s game with Almeria – including Angel di Maria, Sami Khedira, Marcelo, Raphael Varane and Fabio Coentrao – although it is the tiredness of his Spanish contingent he feels could have been avoided.
“We are lucky in that, until March, there are no more international games. It’s hard to talk about the matter as the break hasn’t been kind to us.
“In Spain’s case I don’t think it was a good idea to play those games as it meant players having to spend three nights sleeping on a plane.
“Fortunately, we didn’t suffer any other problems, but better organisation would help to ensure we and other teams don’t have any injury worries concerning our players,” the Italian told a Press conference.
Despite that, Ancelotti feels the mentality of the Madrid squad is upbeat.
“It’s good because everyone has returned home happy to be back in Madrid or because their national team has qualified for the World Cup finals, so psychologically they are all well.
“The only problem we have is with our injured players and making sure they recover, although I think Barca have had similar problems to ours.
“Even so, we shouldn’t focus on our rivals. The last few games have gone well, the team has played good football and the attitude has been right. That must continue at the weekend.
“It’s going to be difficult because Almeria have been doing well, so we need to be careful.
“After the last international break we had problems but I hope that’s not the case on Saturday.”
