Real Madrid and Barcelona have agreed to share the cost of chartering a private plane to bring back their players from Santiago de Chile as soon as the World Cup qualifier between Chile and Argentina finishes.
The game is being played at 02:05am Spanish time. As soon as it finishes, Real Madrid’s Higuaín and Di María and Barcelona’s Messi, Mascherano and Alexis Sánchez, along with Barcelona’s fitness coach, Juanjo Brau, will share the 15 hour flight to Spain’s capital. Barça’s players will continue on to Barcelona.
The private plane will arrive in Spain mid afternoon on Wednesday. Due to this, the players will gain more than half a day. Under normal conditions, commercial flights don’t land until midday on Thursdays, which would mean they’d only be able to take part in one training session before Saturday’s games. Real Madrid is hosting Celta (18:00) and Barça is playing in La Coruña (22:00).
As soon as the match at the ‘Estadio Nacional’ finishes, the six passengers will travel by people carrier from the ground to Santiago’s airport. There’s about 10,000km between Chile’s capital and Spain’s. The cost of the plane is around €150,000, which will be split between the two clubs.