Jose Mourinho: Scheduling to Blame for Real Madrid and Barcelona's UCL Losses

Real Madrid manager Jose Mourinho says the fixture list in La Liga is to blame for the eliminations of his team and league rival Barcelona from the Champions League.

Speaking after Madrid's penalty shootout loss to Bayern Munich Wednesday, Mourinho said it is easier to contest the Champions League when a team has nothing left to play for at home.

"The [Champions League] final will be disputed between the fifth team in the Premier League and the runners-up in the Bundesliga," Mourinho said, "and both used their reserve players this weekend, while Real Madrid and Barcelona faced each other in the most important match of the season in the Spanish league."

Mourinho went on to blame the La Liga calendar for the Spanish giants eliminations, saying, "We've started the most important month of the season with mid-week games and it's resulted in yesterday's and tonight's results."

Comparing the team sheets for the weekend league games with those from the mid-week Champions League deciders, Mourinho has a point.

Chelsea actually sits at sixth place in the Premier League table. And Roberto Di Matteo only started three players (Petr Cech, John Terry and Gary Cahill) for their weekend match against Arsenal who began the game against Barcelona on Tuesday.

The case is even more sharply highlighted in the case of Bayern Munich. The Germans only started two players (Manuel Neuer and Bastian Schweinsteiger) against Werder Bremen on Saturday who took the field for the opening kickoff at the Bernabeu.

Meanwhile, the two Spanish clubs made only minimal adjustments to the teams that contested a decisive El Clasico on Saturday.