FCBARCELONA.CAT

30.05.2007 12:40

Youth and experience

Berta Brau

FC Barcelona travel to Tarragona for the semi finals of the Copa Catalunya with a mixture of youth and experience as coach Frank Rijkaard has called up ten youngsters alongside the eight first team stars.

The Dutch trainer has seen a multitude of players called up by their countries for the forthcoming round of international matches and has forced him to dip into the B and C teams to build a squad for the match on Thursday against Club Gimnàstic.

Staying behind

Víctor Valdés, Albert Jorquera, Oleguer Presas, Juliano Belletti, Sylvinho, Thiago Motta, Santi Ezquerro and Ludovic Giuly are the only first team players available as they have not received calls from their national teams. The absences will give a chance to certain players to appear after not being given many minutes in recent league games, such as Sylvinho and Ezquerro. The Brazilian has not appears in the last three games although he was in the squad for the game against Getafe last weekend, while the Basque forward has missed seven consecutive matches.

Call of youth

Jesús Olmo, Marc Valiente, Marc Crosas, Andrea Orlandi, Víctor Vázquez, Luis Sastre, Thaer Fayed, Giovani Dos Santos, Calvo and Carles Busquets have all been called up from the youth ranks to bolster the squad for the Nàstic outing. All these players have been training under Rijkaard's watchful eye this week.