Thursday evening’s training session was the first time this week that Frank Rijkaard could count on all his available players – internationals included - to prepare for the weekend clash against Betis.
Henry and Touré worked out with the group while Puyol was also on hand to test out his ankle.
After several days marked by the absence of the
internationals, things were back to normal on Thursday evening. The main news was the return to
squad training of Touré Yaya and Thierry Henry, both of whom have been receiving treatment for back
problems, which in the case of Henry caused him to miss Franc’s 1-0 win against England in
Paris.
Puyol puts his ankle to test
Carles Puyol, who picked up a knock to his right ankle during Spain’s 1-0 win over
world champions Italy, also did some light training at the Masía training grounds.
He took part in the warm-up before joining Xavi, Thuram and
Gudjohnsen for some jogging. Thuram then continued with some stretching exercises while talking
with Rijkaard while the other three returned to the changing rooms. Meanwhile, the rest of the
group continued with the usual ball control exercises.
Abidal receives treatment
For his part, French defender Abidal remained in the changing rooms for treatment on the
knock he picked up on Wednesday while Samuel Eto'o joined the session later after working out in
the gym.
Training match
The remaining players then continued with some passing and
shooting practice before splitting into two groups for a training match. With the orange bibs -
Valdés, Ezquerro, Zambrotta, Henry and Touré; without bibs Pinto, Edmílson, Eto'o, Giovani and
Sylvinho.
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Full session for Zambrotta
Apart from Puyol, Italian defender Zambrotta – who replaced Panucci in the 67th minute of the
game between Spain and Italy - was the only Barça international not to play the full ninety minutes
on Wednesday evening. Probably for this reason he remained on the training ground for the full
length of tonight’s session.