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
This is a moment for us to be relaxed and content. Before the game we were concentrated only on the job ahead. There were obviously some nerves in our play but this is what you would expect in a game like this when you get to this stage of the competition.
The moment will come and up until now the board have been thinking of other things. We have barely finished the holidays, we have had an assembly and also 'Ronnie's' contract. Apart from this the contract is only a piece of paper and I will work the same for Barcelona with or without it,
But we will only be celebrating when the moment finally comes. The players are delighted with this result because it was a key game but they know how to deal with the euphoria that has been growing throughout the season.
But there isn't a good or bad moment to celebrate the league title.
He's a great player, at any moment he can make a difference.
I cannot say at this moment whether it was the right decision or not. The only thing I can say is that it is good that we did not use any energy as the decision was a long time in coming. We waited quite a while for the decision to say if we played or not. There was a lot of suspense and that was not good.
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.
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.
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.