Barcelona manager Frank Rijkaard (45) reacted for the first time to his dismissal earlier this week at a press conference yesterday and he did it with class, taking his part of the blame, not accusing anyone and concluding: "It has been an honour."
In an open letter in the official club magazine Barça Camp Nou the Dutchman today says goodbye to the fans, thanking them and the club for the support and wishing his successor all the best.
The future of Rijkaard is at this moment not clear and he didn't want to enter the question yesterday. Briefly linked with the Mexican national team (read more here), the English press is now putting his name forward as possible successor of Manchester City manager Sven-Göran Eriksson (read more here) or Chelsea manager Avram Grant (read more here).
Chelsea owner and Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich is said to be an admirer of Rijkaard and would dream of teaming him up with his former assistant Henk ten Cate. Chelsea chief scout Frank Arnesen is a close friend of Rijkaard.
Catalan sports paper Sport, who reports that Portuguese top club Benfica is also interested, claims that Rijkaard is seriously considering not to accept any of the offers he will receive but to take a sabbatical year. The Dutch manager would keep his residence in Barcelona and would spend his time watching a lot of football games and travelling, far from the daily media pressure.
pep's opinion:
it will be interesting to see where his career is going from here. wherever rijkaard will end up: if you can survive five years in Barcelona, you can survive anything anywhere. he made decisive mistakes over the last fifteen months, but i think it won't last long before we start to miss him.
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