FCBARCELONA.CAT

18.06.2007 17:55

Deco: “I prefer club prizes to individual ones”

Sergi Nogueras

This Monday in Madrid, Deco was named Iberoamerican sports personality of 2006 at the National Sports Awards. While expressing his appreciation for the award, he admitted he prefers team prizes.

Deco was unable to attend the National Sports Awards as they clashed with today’s training session at La Masía. The Barça midfielder, who was born in Brazil but is now a Portuguese national, received the award as the best Iberoamerican sports personality of 2006.

Successor to Ronaldinho

Deco follows on from the previous year’s winner Ronaldinho: “I’m happy. It always makes you happy to receive a prize for something you’ve done well and even more so when you know that Ronaldinho won it last year. I always prefer club prizes to individual ones. But winning a league is always more important. And more so on a day like today”.

Learning from mistakes

Looking back over the season, Deco told us: “We’ve had a lot of injuries, there’s been too much talk, and we failed at some decisive moments, something that didn’t happen before. We have to take stock, take correct decisions and try to do things better next season and learn from our mistakes. We have the best attack and the best defence but we weren’t as strong as in previous seasons when we needed to be”.