Former Real Madrid boss Fabio Capello said the team he had in his second spell at the Bernabeu was a "Madrid of words, but not of hard work."
Capello won the La Liga title upon his return to Madrid for the 2006-07 season with a squad of Galacticos including Brazil internationals Ronaldo, Robinho and Roberto Carlos as well as David Beckham, Raul, Ruud van Nistelrooy and Iker Casillas.
However, the former AC Milan boss said there were problems with motivation.
Capello told AS: "That team was a Madrid of words, but not of hard work. We had good players, but they had no connection. They were difficult. There were factions."
Capello dropped three-time World Player of the Year Ronaldo from his starting XI.
"Look, he weighed 96 kilos then," he said. "I asked him: 'What did you weigh when you won the World Cup in 2002?' He replied: '84 kilos.' I said: 'Can you get down to 90 at least?' And he couldn't."
He stressed that the decision was based purely on fitness, saying: "When I'm asked who the best player I have coached is, I always say Ronaldo.
"Ronaldo was incredible -- the best by a distance. Him and [former Milan striker Marco] Van Basten."
Capello said he much preferred working with the squad of players during his first stint as manager of Real Madrid back in 1996-97.
He stayed at the club for just one year on that occasion too, despite claiming a league title and integrating an exciting new generation of young players into the team, including Raul, Clarence Seedorf, Roberto Carlos and Guti.
"The first had a lot of skill and it was a very reliable side," Capello said. "That was a side of men."
Asked to name the leaders, he said: "[Fernando] Hierro, Raul, [Bodo] Illgner ... there were lots. [Predrag] Mijatovic, [Fernando] Redondo, [Davor] Suker. They were all leaders with personality and they were committed to winning. They wanted to sweat blood, to train hard."
During his playing career, Capello worked under the legendary Argentine coach Helenio Herrera at Roma and stressed that he had emphasised the importance of hard work.
"He was 10 years ahead of all the other coaches," he said. "Not so much in tactics, but how he got the team to work without the ball. That wasn't done before, and he was a great motivator. He always said: 'Train the way you play.'"
Asked how he motivates his players, he said: "In the morning before a game he would grab you by the shirt and shout: 'You're the strongest! You're going to eat them for breakfast!' And in training, if he saw someone stopping or moving slowly he'd send them off.
"During games he didn't know what to do so much. Peiro and I would talk to him to tell him what to do [laughs]: 'Should we change this boss, or change that?'"
Capello moved into international management following his second dismissal from Real in 2007, taking charge of England and then Russia.
The Italian has not worked since being removed as Russian national coach in July 2015 following a run of just two wins in six qualifying games for Euro 2016, but the 69-year-old is still keeping a close eye on the game.
"I see a fashion among some teams who make fools of themselves by trying to play like Barcelona did a little while ago without having the quality to do so," Capello said. "The most beautiful thing in football right now is rapid recovery of the ball and then playing direct football from that point, like Bayern or Barca.
"Napoli and [Jurgen] Klopp's Liverpool also do the same thing. That is the way football is going."