Soccer-Everything was against Napoli, says frustrated Sarri

MILAN, April 3 (Reuters) - Angry Napoli coach Maurizio Sarri complained about the referee, the international calendar, the kickoff time and the Serie A fixture list after Sunday's 3-1 defeat to Udinese severely dented his team's title hopes. The midday kickoff topped his list of grievances as second-placed Napoli, who had Sarri sent to the stands in the first half and striker Gonzalo Higuain dismissed in the second, dropped six points behind leaders Juventus with only seven games to play. "We didn't move the ball around the way we usually do and that has happened on the other occasions we have played at this time (1230 pm local time)," Sarri told reporters. "It's a difficult and unnatural time of the day." He was also angry that Napoli invariably had to play their games after Juventus, who have won 20 of their last 21 league matches, which he said meant that they were always trying to catch up. Serie A weekends are spread over two or three days and Juventus played their game on Saturday evening, when they beat Empoli 1-0. "Ever since we've been second, we've been playing after Juventus, this is the sixth time out of six, and the anger and frustration came out," he said. "It is strange that the team that is second in the league has to play at this time. I don't like this spread out fixture list and I've always said so." He then took aim at the international calendar, where South American and African players play for their countries in midweek and immediately face long flights back to Europe before playing at the weekend. "We have players who haven't had a single training session after spending hours in the air," he said. "These are enormous difficulties and we are suffering more than the other teams." Sarri then turned his attention to referee Massimiliano Irrati, who awarded Udinese two first-half penalties, one of which was converted and one of which was missed. "I just told Irrati that he was refereeing really badly, but you can't even say that, " Sarri told reporters of his sending-off. "I didn't like the way the referee judged fouls and cards at all. Higuain told me he accidentally trod on his opponent and therefore felt he was the victim of an injustice." (Writing by Brian Homewood in Berne; Editing by Toby Davis)