Coach Rijkaard to unleash starlets against Nastic.



Barcelona will give their numerous youngsters in the junior team, Barca B early exposure as they strive to scale through to the Final of the Copa Catalunya by defeating Nastic in Thursday's Semi-Final match.


Having lost as many as thirteen Team A players to national team duty in the on-going Euro 2008 qualifiers, African Cup of Nations Qualifiers and International Friendlies, Coach Rijkaard has drawn from the youth talents to run Nastic down. He has called up the likes of Jesús Olmo, Marc Valiente, Marc Crosas, Andrea Orlandi, Víctor Vázquez, Luis Sastre, Thaer Fayed, Giovani Dos Santos, Calvo and Carles Busquets to play the Thursday game.


Barcelona are trying hard to integrate their youth team into top flight soccer while retaining hte best of them, in order to benefit from its youth nurturing programmes of which many other clubs have rather been end beneficiaries in the past.


One of the brightest stars among them, Bojan Krkic will be absent from the game as he has been called to national duty as well, but this time in the Spanish U-20 side to play in their qualifying match against Georgia,after emerging Spains highest goal scorer in the U-17 category for the second year running. The youngster has been in the news of late, as the world press are very much interested in his fututre. Of the goal sensation, Rijkaard says:

He is not just any player. Bojan krkic is a quality player with so much talent. It is important to keep him and ensure he plays well at all levels and is able to absorb pressure under various situaions.

Rijkaard has recently indicated that 16-year old Bojan will be playing for the Seniors next season.