FCBARCELONA.CAT

19.04.2010 12:02

Txiki insists motivation will overcome tiredness

www.fcbarcelona.cat

Speaking on Monday morning ahead of the final part of Barca’s marathon journey to Milan, Technical Secretary Txiki Begiristain assured us that the tiredness brought on by the long coach trip would be cancelled out by the players’ desire to reach the

Txiki told Barca TV and the Club’s website that the long slog by road could possibly affect the players, although he insisted that the lure of a second consecutive Champions League final would overcome any fatigue. He emphasized: “This is the final step before the final. There’s no tiredness here!”

Txiki calls on UEFA to be flexible

However, despite his confidence in the ability of the players to overcome these travel problems, Txiki did voice his misgivings about the situation caused the Europe-wide flight restrictions: “UEFA must be flexible. I know that there aren’t enough dates to play but in the end you have to make an effort so as not to give one team an advantage, in this case the home team. At this moment in time, making a team travel by coach belongs to a bygone age”.

Rearranged schedules

He believes the match could have been rearranged for a later date: “I would have made the effort to bring forward some league matches to leave a weekend free for the Champions League. Something should have been done not to give this advantage to the home team”.

A close contest

Moving back to purely footballing matters, Txiki predicted a close contest on Tuesday evening and insisted that scoring an away goal was not absolutely essential: “Inter are a strong team who like to be in control. They’ll run fewer risks than us. However, Barca is strong and we won’t let the opposition have any chances”.

An intense encounter

Barca and Inter met twice in the group stage of this year’s competition with Barca having the better of the two meetings. However, Txiki is convinced that this semi-final tie will be completely different from the two matches earlier in the season: “It’ll be highly intense with a big dose of defensive concentration. A Champions League semi-final is already tense by definition. At the end of the day it’s the referee’s job to decide how far that aggression can go”.