Real Madrid set to play an in-house friendly against Castilla tomorrow | OneFootball

Real Madrid are heading into the international break as league leaders, thanks to a 3-1 win over Villarreal, which was complemented by Barcelona’s shocking 4-1 defeat to Sevilla.

With most first-team stars heading away for international duty, coach Xabi Alonso, in order to keep the players occupied, has arranged a friendly.

Real Madrid to play Castilla in a friendly

According to MARCA, Real Madrid will take on Castilla, as part of Wednesday’s training session with existing players.

Alonso will be heading into this friendly with nine first-team players, including Jude Bellingham, Raul Asencio, Endrick and Aurelien Tchouameni.

Fran Garcia, Andriy Lunin, Alvaro Carreras and Federico Valverde are some of the other players available at his disposal.

This means Alonso can complete the Real Madrid team by adding only a few players from the Castilla squad.

Bellingham has an important week ahead of him as he looks to return to peak form. (Photo by Denis Doyle/Getty Images)

This will be a part of Alonso’s plans to keep the team fresh and one can assume the focus will be on Bellingham, as the Real Madrid coach wants the Englishman to utilise the international break to get back to full fitness.

In fact, Alonso has plans to start Bellingham, who has been benched in the last two matches, in the next league game against Getafe.

As far as injured players are concerned, no new faces will be joining the Real Madrid setup during the international break, with players like Trent, Antonio Rudiger, Dani Carvajal and Ferland Mendy still not ready for action.

Alonso, in any case, has no desire to rush any of them back into action and the coach will, therefore, work with the existing set of players.

It will be interesting to see if Joan Martinez gets some action, having recently returned to first-team training after over 400 days.