Real Madrid head coach Carlo Ancelotti said that his team will refuse to report for La Liga fixtures if given less than 72 hours' rest between matches.
The Italian complained about the turnaround time between Wednesday night’s Champions League last 16 second leg victory over Atletico Madrid - which went to extra time and penalties - and Saturday afternoon’s away trip to Villarreal at a prematch press conference before the weekend.
Following a 2-1 win in the Estadio La Ceramica, Ancelotti again returned to the theme of having a packed calendar and little recovery time.
“The explanation is that this team has something special. Character, commitment, they can’t always do it, sometimes I even get angry with them. We must thank these players for their enormous effort since January 3. Even more so today. It’s the last time we’re going to play before 72 hours. We are never going to do it again. We have asked LaLiga twice to change the schedule and nothing has happened. It’s the last time,” Ancelotti warned.
Then asked to confirm whether he meant that Madrid will be a no show for another game with less than 72 hours’ rest, Ancelotti stated:“ No. No, of course not.”
As for the match itself, where Madrid went 1-0 down through a Justin Foyth effort inside seven minutes but then rallied back through a Kylian Mbappe double completed around a quarter of an hour later, Ancelotti credited his men for being “able to withstand the difficult moment, which was in the first part of both halves”.
“Then little by little we started to handle the ball better and we looked for opportunities. Two goals came from Mbappe, and some counterattacks could have been better in the second half,” he added.
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“I’m very proud. It was a trap game, because of everything that happened, because of the hours of rest and because of the strength of the opponent, who are a good team, but we were watered down physically. The team ended up exhausted, it’s quite normal. It’s a victory that says a lot about this team and the resources of this squad,” Ancelotti further stated.
Ancelotti confessed that he will watch Atletico Madrid and FC Barcelona on Sunday night, which is important to the title race as his side returned the top with a three-point advantage though the Catalans have two games in hand on Los Blancos.
“I’m going to watch Atleti-Barca, of course. It will be very entertaining. As a lover of football, tomorrow I’ll be a football fan. And nothing else,” Ancelotti concluded.