FCBARCELONA.CAT

03.01.2008 12:13

Recovery session

Anna Segura

After qualifying for the last 16 of the King’s Cup, Barça are now focusing on their next objective - the league game against Mallorca. But first, they completed a recovery training session.

As per usual, those players who played in the game against Alcoyano, took part in a lighter recovery training session. With the exception of Deco and Oier, who played the full 90 minutes, the rest of the starting eleven took to the Ministadium, where they were received by some 2,300 supporters, for a warm-up, some circuit training and a series of physical exercises and later returned to the dressing rooms.

Sylvinho trained separately from the group. Thuram, who was substituted at half-time during the cup game after suffering bruising to his right Achilles, trained as normal with the rest of the team but didn’t take part in the practice game at the end.

Messi and Ronaldinho present

Although continuing with their own recovery programme, Messi and Ronaldinho showed up at the Ministadium to greet the supporters. The Brazilian took to the pitch for a few minutes before returning to the gym. Messi did the first part of his training in the gym and later did some running on the pitch with one of the physios.

Practice game

After the warm-up and physical exercises the training staff divided the players into two teams for a practice game on a small pitch. The team in yellow bibs was made up of Valdés, Marc Crosas, Xavi, Deco, Abidal, Eto’o and Márquez. The team without bibs was Oier, Milito, Touré, Henry, Iniesta and Zambrotta.

The session finished with all the players clapping the supporters and the Barça anthem playing over the Tannoy.