FCBARCELONA.CAT

08.12.2007 14:45

“It’s a happy moment for the team”

Sandra Sarmiento

Rijkaard, happy with the return of injured players, said “it’s always better to play with a full squad”, and warned about the danger of Deportivo’s strong away record.

The Nou Camp turf looked good looked good this Saturday morning. Rijkaard got ready for the Deportivo match with 19 first team players. Less than a week ago, he had 8 injuries. This time Santi Ezquerro has been left out for technical reasons. “It’s always better to play with a full squad”, said the coach now that Eto’o and Deco are back to achieve the collective goal. “It’s a happy moment for the team and the players”.

Eto’o and the African Cup

Rijkaard praised Eto’o for “his class, his unique talent, his personality and his character. Eto’o is an important player for us because of the way he plays”. The Barça coach can count on Eto’o till January, when he will be playing for Cameroon in the African Cup, unless the club can prevent this: “We can try to prevent this, but we have to respect FIFA’s rules. I’d prefer him to stay, but there’s nothing we can do about it”.

League leadership main goal

Deportivo, Valencia, Madrid. There’s nothing else on the Barça players’ minds. During the week, both Zambrotta and Messi had declared that the most urgent goal was to get 9 points and become league leaders, an opinion which Rijkaard shares.

The dangers of Deportivo

Despite lying 18th in the league, Rijkaard thinks they shouldn’t be underestimated: “They have talent and they can grow. It’s true that they are low down in the table, but they’ve managed some good results away from home. They’ve got talent and they’re organised. Everybody in the league is competitive. If we went onto the pitch thinking it’ll be a walkover, we’d be making a big mistake”.

Messi

After the draw with Espanyol, Rijkaard said it was “amazing how Messi controls the ball, but with a little more experience we would have won the game. He had a great game against Espanyol. What I meant to say was that he’s still young and capable of growing. He can still become more important. This wasn’t a criticism, this was praise”.

Rijkaard would sign Ronaldinho

In response to Real Madrid’s sports director Predrag Mijatovic’s comments that he “wouldn’t sign a player like Ronaldinho”, Rijkaard said that the Barça number 10 is up for playing, and that he would sign “Gaucho”.