Transfer history: Rijkaard, Ronaldinho and Deco

Catalan sports paper El Mundo Deportivo claimed last week that the Barcelona board was last summer on the verge of making a radical change to the team and is now regretting not having done so.

Manager Frank Rijkaard (45) was close to being dismissed but ultimately he got the confidence of the board to stay on for one more year, on the condition that he would ask more from his players. In the end it then was Rijkaard who stopped the sale, favoured by a lot of board members, of Ronaldinho (27) and Deco (30).