Are You Serious, Mr. Vicente Del Bosque?

The Spanish national team is going to face Mexico (in Mexico) on August 11 in a friendly match. Seven Barcelona players (Valdez, Puyol, Piqué, Busquets, Xavi, Pedro, and Villa) were called for that match, which apparently seems pretty normal.

However, this situation is all but normal.

Should I start with the fact that these players are all currently on vacation or the fact that Barcelona will play the first leg of the Spanish Super Cup (against Sevilla) on August 14, three days after the game against Mexico?

These players will be forced to play in extremely hard conditions (long trip, altitude...) right after they come back from vacation, which obviously means they won't still be in their best physical shape and will struggle to hold on for 90 (or even 45) minutes.

As a consequence, they won't be able to play in the Supercup, a tremendous handicap for Barcelona.

Del Bosque has said he didn't think the proximity of the Super Cup was a good enough reason to exclude the Barcelona players.

“We are quite considerate and sensitive to the demands of all clubs because it has to be like that,” Del Bosque told a news conference at the Spanish soccer federation base outside Madrid.

“We want to maintain a consistent list following the World Cup. They’ll be there on the 12th, all in good physical shape. I think they will be able to do it all.”

Are you serious, Mr. Del Bosque? You acutally think that these players, right after coming back from vacation, will manage to play a friendly match in Mexico and then play three days later in the Super Cup, with two long trips in the middle?

It's not even like this is an important match or anything: It's just a friendly.

It's a known fact that Del Bosque is an ex-coach of Real Mardrid—a madridista at heart.

If this was really done as a way of hurting Barcelona's chances of winning the Super Cup (frankly, I can't see any other explanation for Del Bosque to call players who are currently on vacation and will have an official club match three days later), I only have one thing to say: Nice try, Mr. Del Bosque, but we're still going to win.

Let's just hope Del Bosque comes to his senses soon and takes the only sensible course of action: releasing the Barcelona players and Jesus Navas.

If he doesn't, Barcelona will just have to win it the hard way.

P.S. Thanks for letting us have Iniesta, Mr. Del Bosque.