Barcelona team-mates Samuel Eto’o and Ronaldinho embraced during training on Wednesday as the club tried to play down reports of a rift between the pair caused by the Cameroon striker’s recent comments.
The two players hugged each other at the start of training a day after Eto’o had criticised both the Brazilian and coach Frank Rijkaard.
“Telling a news conference that I didn’t want to play is the behaviour of a bad person,” Eto’o said of Rijkaard earlier in the week.
Eto’o also made a criticised Ronaldinho, who had suggested that the striker should put the interests of the team before his own.
“If a colleague comes out and says ‘think about the team’, then it should be him who should be thinking about the team,” Eto’o said.
But club captain Carles Puyol said that the problem had been solved by a face-to-face meeting.
“We had a meeting between the captains of the team (Puyol and Xavi) and then spoke to Ronaldinho and Eto’o because it was an important enough matter to talk over together,” Puyol told a news conference.
“What happened is that Ronnie’s (Ronaldinho’s) comments were misinterpreted. When they both met today it was clear that Ronnie did not want to criticise Eto’o. Eto’o also has no problem with Rijkaard.”
“I can assure you that the whole matter has now been solved,” continued Puyol.
“People think that there is a time bomb in the dressing room, but that isn’t true. Rijkaard has got the team under control. Eto’o has a good relationship with the rest of the group and the atmosphere is good.
“Outside the dressing room there may be divisions but not inside. We need to be 100 percent united as we have got a difficult set of matches coming up.”
