Barca-Madrid spat could harm Spanish national team

Spain international winger Santi Cazorla this Monday explained his worries that the current bad relations between players at FC Barcelona and Real Madrid could spill over and affect the atmosphere in the Spanish national team. There are currently nine FC Barcelona players in the Spanish national squad: Victor Valdes, Thiago Alcantara, Carles Puyol, Gerard Pique, Pedro Rodriguez, Xavi Hernandez, Cesc Fabrigas, Andres Iniesta and Sergio Busquets, while Iker Casillas, Sergio Ramos, Xabi Alonso, Raul Albiol and Alvaro Arbeloa all playing for Real Madrid. Following the controversy generated by the four meetings between the club sides at the end of last season, tensions appeared to have calmed down between the clubs, but the bad feeling came straight back to the surface at the end of the Supercup game which Barcelona won 3-2 last Wednesday. The end of the game was marred by ugly scenes after Madrid defender Marcelo, committed a horrible tackle from behind on Cesc and the resulting altercation saw Madrid coach Jose Mourinho sneak up on Barcelona assistant coach Tito Vilanova and stick his finger in his eye. Far from apologising for his action, Mourinho appears to be completely unrepentant, and although Casillas is reported to have spoken to Puyol and Xavi, Cazorla is worried that the bad relations between the two sets of players will now spill over into the international camp. "The situation is at the limit and at the end of the day that could be very harmful for the group of players that we have," said the Malaga winger in the newspaper "La Nueva Espana." "For all that we want things to be different, the relations between the players could be influenced by what had happened. At the moment the atmosphere is good, but if there continues to be problems between Barcelona and Real Madrid, then things will get worse," said Cazorla. Spain's next international fixtures are at the start of September when Vicente del Bosque's World and European champions entertain Liechtenstein in a qualification match for the 2012 European Championships, which will be held in Poland and the Ukraine