Carlo Ancelotti, the Italian coach of Real Madrid, has pointed to the calendar as the main factor behind the numerous injuries plaguing his squad at the start of the season. He stated that "players get injured because they play too much" and called on governing bodies to reduce the number of matches.

"We've looked into the issue, but it's not within our control. It's due to an excessively demanding calendar. Now there's a new Champions League that we don't know how it's going to turn out. It might be more entertaining than last year, but the fact is that, for now, we have two more games," he analyzed.

"If the governing bodies that decide this don't start to realize that players get injured because they play too much, we have a problem. I ask them to consider reducing the number of matches to make competitions more appealing," he added.

The tight schedule means many of his players who participated in the European Championship or Copa América barely had any pre-season and are now playing matches every three days between Real Madrid and their national teams. Ancelotti argued this is key to the team's uneven start.

"In these six games, we could have had two more points in the league, but we’re where we wanted to be. We’ve won the first title, and some issues were to be expected because several players arrived on August 9. Years ago, there were five weeks of pre-season before the competition. That’s what you need to fully prepare a player. Today marks the end of the pre-season period, and now we need to improve," he said.

Real Madrid returns to their favorite competition with "the same excitement" and the goal of becoming champions again. Ancelotti feels that many are seeing them as favorites, but he spread the credit around. "The favorites are always the same. They might see us only because we won last year, but this Champions League will be a different story. Hopefully, we can reach the end," he said.

He will seek that goal despite losing "important players like Kroos, Nacho, and Joselu," but acknowledged signing "the best player in the world" in Kylian Mbappé. "We have a better squad than last year," the Madrid coach admitted.

"The fact that Stuttgart is coming to play at the Bernabéu means their coach has done a fantastic job and that they are a very good team. They are well organized on the field, and we’ll see a very entertaining match," he concluded, focusing on Stuttgart.