The Barça boss was happy with his team’s display against Yokohama F. Marinos, and understood that the atmosphere was against them and the opposition was in better physical shape.
FC Barcelona beat Yokohama F. Marinos for the first time in three recent attempts, and Frank
Rijkaard admitted that in “in games when we are not at full fitness we tend to seek a good
result and in that sense the team performed well. They played with the mentality of wanting to win
the game. The team was very much in the game and played seriously in order to get the job
done”.
Yokohama fitter
Yokohama, he said, “were fitter than we were and that meant we had to suffer a lot out
there. I liked Barça’s attitude because we played as a team.” But he added that
“we are still not on full form, just working to get there. This game was a good test.”
Starting forwards
Against Yokohama, Rijkaard played all three of Henry, Eto'o and Ronaldinho at the same time,
and although none of them scored he felt “the team first needs to improve physically and then
in a football sense. We need to take things step by step, gradually improving.” Expectations
are high but Rijkaard believes “people want big things but I think they made a huge effort
and I congratulate them for that”.
Henry and Giovani
Two names to come up in the press conference were those of Thierry Henry and Giovani Dos
Santos. On the Frenchman, Rijkaard said “he needs to get into his rhythm and improve
physically”.
But he was full of praise for Giovani Dos Santos, saying “he is our secret weapon. He
went onto the pitch, scored a goal, hit the post and moved about very well.” Rijkaard is
pleased because “the more quality players we have the better our chances are, for example,
when we get injuries. He works hard, he is strong and he can help the team at any time”.
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Fitness is the target
Speaking to the press, Frank Rijkaard said that “we need to play aggressively in the
opposition’s half, creating pressure. We are working on that little by little but we need to
be fit enough to be able to do it.” He concluded by saying “what we are doing now is
playing, winning, getting fit and giving minutes to the players.”