12K Fill The Mini To See, Santiago Ezquerro?

Plenty of Barcelona fans of all ages filed into the Mini Estadi yesterday, and walked away a little disappointed. Drawn in by the adverts claiming that that first team would all be training in a session open to the public, cules from all over gladly paid their three euros to take in the show. Unbeknownst to them, those absent from the practice where the two most of them had come to see: Ronaldinho and Deco.

The story is that both players, while already having Frank Rijkaard's permission to have an extra day of vacation, made it back to Barcelona late. Their punishment was to train alone inside the Camp Nou and not with their teammates before the public. You can't really blame the club's supporters for getting a bit ticked off about the whole thing. But hey, beggars can't be choosers. Among the 13 players available for autographs and photos were Victor Valdes, Carles Puyol, Javier Saviola, Juliano Belletti, Rafael Marquez, and Xavi.

On Sunday, Barca travel to the southern end of Madrid to take on Bernd Schuster's Getafe. Neither Samuel Eto'o, Lionel Messi, Lilian Thuram, Gianluca Zambrotta, Deco, or Ronaldinho will be able to play. The first four are out injured while the latter two were both given their fifth yellow cards of the season against Atletico de Madrid which brought about an immediate one game suspension.

Ronaldinho and Deco leave the fans asking: where are they? (In Spanish) [As]
Huge crowd at the Miniestadi [Barcelona official site]

-ac