Rijkaard highlights the effect of a week-long empty camp, though emphasizing that a better result could have been achieved.


FC Barcelona’s coach Frank Rijkaard was not a happy man, moreso as the Dutchman would have been more precise in apportioning self-blame if the Blaugrana were not distracted by the avalanche of international matches that rendered Camp Nou empty for one week. However, Rijkaard still believed that despite the absence of players for a full week, Barca could have still performed better in the match against Villarreal, securing at worst a draw instead of an outright loss. Rijkaard sees a situation where more work will need to be done in the team so as to check the negative impact of international commitments. The Barca coach said in his post match comments:

It could be said that the defeat has come as a result of the international break. We have hardly trained the past two weeks and we came up against a team that has been well prepared. One can always look for excuses, but I do not think that we have done our jobs, it has been easy for them and they were more aggressive. The team showed a good attitude, but Villarreal played very well and beat us. At games at this level you cannot give your opponents this amount of chances. At the beginning any 50-50 ball went their way. We reacted, but it was not possible to do anything. In games like this we have work as a unit, contain them at the back and then use our quality to achieve something. Tonight that did not happen as in every area of the field, Villarreal were stronger than us.

Brazilian star Ronaldinho did not feature in the match as he didn’t return early due to the distance in timings after the South American world cup qualifying matches.

FC Barcelona will play their next match against Glasgow Rangers in Scotland, in another tiring trip for the Catalan giants on Wednesday. Kick-off time is 20:45 hours ( GMT + 1 )