Real Madrid coach Jose Mourinho accused the press Tuesday of unfairly bashing his club for brawling while praising the Spain squad for the same behaviour.
Mourinho was still smarting after Sunday's shock 1-0 loss to Levante, saying he did not want to keep talking about the defeat.
The Portuguese had singled out Sami Khedira for blame for getting sent off for a second yellow card imposed for shoving during an on-field fracas, leaving his team with only 10 men for much of the game.
But he was more forgiving of Khedira in a news conference a day before facing Racing Santander on Wednesday in the Sardinero stadium.
"I don't know if what Khedira did can be called a brawl. To me it was not a brawl," the coach said.
"A brawl is what happened in Spain-Chile and you said it was spectacular, incredible, that it showed the team spirit, that it showed tremendous character and that the players were like brothers.
"Real Madrid does it and, well, we are a group of bandits."
On September 2, angry Chilean players sparked a brawl at the final whistle in St. Gallen, Switzerland, after Spain fought back from two goals down to beat Chile 3-2 in a friendly.
Mourinho said he was surprised at Khedira's sending off because he is a "very, very, very calm player."
"He is one of the last I would have expected it from. But he did it and there is the sanction. The team played with 10, the team lost and tomorrow he won't play, that's the sanction," the coach said.
"He does not deserve any other sanction. Tomorrow after the match his sanction ends and he is a player like any other. He is one of the players I don't even worry about because I don't think he will do it again. He does not have that profile of an adversarial player."
Mourinho said he would bring in three players for the Santander match to replace the suspended Khedira as well as Pepe and Coentrao, who both picked up leg muscle strains in the Levante game.
Source: AFP
