Anger and discontent have taken hold at Real Madrid over the date of their match against Valencia in the 12th round of the Spanish league, after La Liga set the fixture for Saturday 7 November, despite the side playing a European away match just a few days earlier.
Spanish newspaper "AS" report that La Liga's latest decision has gone down badly inside Real Madrid with players, coaching staff and the club's board alike, because of the limited time available to prepare for the clash, given that the team has a match against AEK Athens in Greece in the Champions League.
Real Madrid's players held their first training session in preparation for travelling on Tuesday to Rome, where the side face Roma on Wednesday in the second round of the league phase of the Champions League.
Nothing notable came out of the session. The first-choice players who featured in last Saturday's match carried out individual work, while players such as Rodrygo and Asensio continue their rehabilitation programme to recover from injury.
Curiously, Real Madrid's players will hold another training session on Tuesday at the Valdebebas sports city before travelling, rather than training at the Olympic Stadium in Rome.
Xabi Alonso took the same decision last season, when he chose not to train his players at Anfield, explaining: "This is my decision, because we have to prepare for the match, and we prefer to do that at our sports city, in our own space, so that we are not surrounded by 200 cameras." That decision attracted wide attention at the time.
The discontent this time runs through the coaching staff, the players and the club's board, none of whom understood La Liga's latest decision. The league announced the fixture times for the twelfth round of the Spanish league, revealing that Real Madrid will face AEK Athens in the Greek capital on Wednesday 4 November at 18:45, before playing Valencia on Saturday 7 November at 21:00.
Madrid will land back in the Spanish capital in the early hours of the morning after their European match. That leaves only Thursday evening, if Jose Mourinho decides to hold a session that day, along with Friday, to prepare for the meeting with Valencia, a fixture that has been difficult of late.
Sources inside Real Madrid say the decision has caused "great discontent and surprise" among the players and the coaching staff, given its direct impact on them.
Members of the Real Madrid dressing room pointed out that there is no problem at all with postponing the match to Sunday, especially as the team will not play any European matches or Copa del Rey fixtures the following week.
The other four sides taking part in the Champions League will play their domestic matches on Sunday 8 November. Real Betis travel to Elche at 14:00, then Villarreal host Getafe at 18:30, while Atletico Madrid welcome Barcelona at 21:00 on the same day.
Barcelona, Atletico Madrid and Villarreal play their European matches a day earlier, on Tuesday 3 November, all of them at home, with Barca hosting Aston Villa, Atletico Madrid meeting Bayern Munich and Villarreal facing Paris Saint-Germain, with all three matches kicking off at 21:00.
Real Betis, meanwhile, travel to Borussia Dortmund in Germany on Wednesday at 21:00.
Another international break begins straight after that round, which only deepens the bewilderment of Real Madrid officials at the match not being played on Sunday, when the players would have picked up some extra rest. A fresh crisis over the fixture calendar looms.