Barca lost Gerard Pique and Sergi Roberto to serious injuries in Saturday's 1-0 defeat by Atletico Madrid in La Liga, leaving them with only three defenders in the first team squad for the trip to Ukraine.
Koeman said his side's strong position in Group G was behind him resting Messi and Dutch midfielder Frenkie De Jong but he also took a swipe at the unforgiving football schedule, saying global organiser FIFA and European counterpart UEFA should take action. "We thought it was a good moment to rest Leo and Frenkie as most of our players have played every minute with us and then they played with the national teams and Messi had a difficult trip back from South America ."
Liverpool coach Juergen Klopp took aim at broadcasters Sky and BT on Sunday over match scheduling, while Real Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane also said there were too many games."Look at the example of Sergi Roberto, the reason he got injured was because of playing too many games. Everybody knows this but still we need to continue to play this number of games, it's incredible.
Oi, what kind of reporting / posting is this?
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