Frank Rijkaard
Frank Rijkaard
Franklin Edmundo Rijkaard; born 30 September 1962) is a Dutch football manager and former player. Rijkaard has played for Ajax, Real Zaragoza and Milan, and represented his national side 73 times, scoring 10 goals. In his coaching career, he has been at the helm of the Netherlands national team, Sparta Rotterdam, Barcelona, Galatasaray and the Saudi Arabia national team. Regarded as one of the best defensive midfielders in footballing history, and as one of the best players of his generation,...
ProfessionSoccer Player
Date of Birth30 September 1962
CityAmsterdam, Netherlands
I have played a lot of times against Milan as a player and coach, so it's really just another game.
It will be a very interesting game against a strong side. They've played at a consistently high level for a long time now. I've already played against Milan as a player and as a coach, so it's just another game featuring two strong teams and that's it.
To do that against such a strong defense in such a special game. Spectacular.
Deco was brilliant against Mallorca. He played like he did last season. He made some great challenges, worked really hard and made some very intelligent passes.
(Milan) is a team with a lot of experience, a great system of play and a very strong defense. It will be very interesting to see how we react against an opponent of this nature.
We will have bigger games than this and against better opposition and we have to be careful. We cannot afford the luxury of making things more complicated than necessary.
We did our job and took the points and we're happy with that. This is just as important a win as any other even if the game wasn't particularly attractive. We ensured they had few chances and scored three times ourselves. They were happy to sit back and let us come at them and that meant the game wasn't too attractive, but we had to be on our guard against their counter attacks and we did that well.
I saw a lot of good things today, such as our defensive strength and the way Deco played, but we still are not 100 per cent, ... Little by little we are getting there, although it wasn't the most attractive game because we had to play against a solid defensive wall, but that's always going to be the way (in the Nou Camp).
I'm really pleased with the attitude of the boys tonight. They took the game really seriously, and didn't relax even towards the end.
They asked a lot of us and we had to work hard. We had to be very careful.
We showed great pride to avoid defeat although I can't congratulate my players for drawing, ... It was only when we were losing 2-0 that some players lost their fear of wasting a pass.
We controlled the came but we played too deep.
This was another victory for hard work. You can't always win games just simply by being much better than your opponent.
This was a big result for the players and the club.