Three things to blame for Real Madrid’s Copa Del Rey exit to Athletic Bilbao
3. Improper workload management and ridiculous scheduling
Three of yesterday’s starters had just returned from Brazil, a day before the game, and six of the starters in yesterday’s game have already played over 2000 minutes this season. The exhaustion is somewhat expected because these players have been severely overworked this season. Yesterday’s fixture was an important game, so the best players had to start the game. But how can we expect them to play well in games like these if their workload hasn’t been managed properly?
Carlo Ancelotti and his coaching staff must be blamed for this because they have a talented squad at their disposal, but haven’t been able to make the best use of the squad depth. The squad might be imbalanced, but it is not so bad that only 14 players should be used throughout the season.
Next. The best Real Madrid player to wear every kit number. dark
Another thing we need to talk about is the scheduling of this international break and the Copa Del Rey quarter-finals. Because this schedule is nothing but injustice to the top clubs. How can the organisations expect players to choose between national duty and club football? In a space of 42 hours, players had to play games on different continents, which is nothing but severe injustice to players and the clubs who have sent their players to international duty.
Talking about this might seem like an excuse at this time, but the schedule was always labelled as a ridiculous one before this game.