Carlo Ancelotti is starting to make decisions at Real Madrid, starting with bringing pre-season forward by a week.
Zinedine Zidane had told his players to return on July 12, but the Italian wants the Real Madrid squad to kick off their preparations for the 2021/22 season on July 7.
Ancelotti is looking forward to seeing some of the players he will have to make a decision on, with a few members of the first-team squad set to depart the club this summer, as the coach recognised during his presentation.
“We are going to reduce the squad,” said Ancelotti.
As MARCA has reported, Real Madrid‘s pre-season will take place almost entirely at the club’s training ground in Valdebebas.
The COVID-19 pandemic has prevented Los Blancos from taking part in the International Champions Cup, which will again be the case this summer, but the club have not ruled out travelling to some European cities to play two or three friendlies.
Naturally, because of this summer’s European Championship, there will be less players available at the beginning of pre-season. The players not called up by their national teams will be the first to begin work under Ancelotti‘s orders, and gradually the rest of the internationals will follow.
In total, there are 13 Real Madrid players that have been called up by their national team this summer: Toni Kroos, Raphael Varane, Karim Benzema, Luka Modric, Thibaut Courtois, Eden Hazard, David Alaba and Andriy Lunin for Euro 2020; Fede Valverde, Casemiro, Eder Militao and Vinicius Junior for the World Cup qualifiers; and Rodrygo Goes is away with Brazil’s under-23s.
