FCBARCELONA.CAT

11.03.2007 01:00

Morale boost for Rijkaard

Frank Rijkaard has highlighted the importance of the point that FC Barcelona won after playing for a long period with only ten players. "The draw is a morale boost for the team," he said.

The Barça coach announced that he was content with the spirit that the team showed and that they were able to come back from being behind on three occasions. He was also pleased with the performance of the team after Oleguer Presas was sent off before half-time: "Looking at the whole game and seeing that despite playing ten against eleven that we were still capable of earning a draw, we can view it as a success," Rijkaard stated. "The draw is a morale boost for the team because we have all seen what happened and how much the effort the players gave and how much they had to work."

Correcting things

Reflecting on the opening minutes of the game, Rijkaard said that he regretted the manner in which Ruud Van Nistelrooy was twice able to put the visitors in front: "It is a pity that scored two quite easy goals and made life very difficult for us.

"When we did not have the ball we were not well organised, which allowed our opponents to reach our goal quite easily," he continued. "That is an aspect that we have to analyse and to correct so that it does not happen again."

Pleased for Messi

Without any doubt, the main protagonist of el Clásico was young Lionel Messi, who scored a hat-trick to earn his side a share of the spoils: "He saved us from defeat," the Blaugrana boss explained. "When a player scores three goals it shows that he has had a very special game."

Rijkaard then praised the two players that have come back from injury to begin performing so well once again. "I want to congratulate the return of both Messi and Samuel Eto'o," he said, before adding about Ronaldinho that "he worked very hard throughout the game."

Using the 3-4-3

Rijkaard chose to employ the 3-4-3 at the start of the game using the same players that began at Anfield in midweek and he had not doubts about his decision as he explained that "I am convinced that we can play this way" before stating that "it has worked very well in other game". The only slight doubts the Dutchman had were that "the team was slightly disorganised at crucial moments", an area which he repeated that he was keen to work on to eradicate in the future.