Ancelotti: “It’s clearly not a penalty, they invented it”

Carlo Ancelotti doesn’t usually talk about referees, but he made an exception in his press conference following the Girona draw. Asked about the two main situations, the Marco Asensio handball penalty and the disallowed Rodrygo goal, the Italian stated: “I don’t like to speak about these things, but I’m going speak about it. It’s quite clear that it’s not a penalty because it doesn’t hit his hand as it hit his chest. His arm was in a strange position, but it didn’t touch his hand. They invented it. That affected the game. The Rodrygo one you can have an opinion on, if the goalkeeper had possession of the ball. I won’t say.”

Ancelotti on the physical level of the squad

Real Madrid should have been able to defeat Girona even with the refereeing issues. But, Ancelotti explained that the squad is suffering from the intense run of games, saying: “It’s a moment of the season when it’s hard to have a very high level of play. We have a lot of games and we knew there would be some fatigue at this stage of the season. You don’t have as much time to recover physically and mentally. We’ve also had a few injury issues of late. But, to reach the World Cup break still top of the table is still in our hands.”

Ancelotti on the Bernabéu pitch

Another issue brought up was the state of the Bernabéu pitch, which is once again suffering. On that, he told the room: “This is something they’re trying to fix. I’m not a gardener, but we’re all worried about this. I hope they can fix it soon.”