Ronaldinho Rijkaard Rift?

Filed in archive Ronaldinho on August 30, 2006

The Sun comes in for a lot of stick, and with good reason. But sometimes their gutter approach to football news makes them the only newspaper brave enough to speculate, giving Juicy headlines to modest entities like Soccer-Weblog.

And so, The Sun's report that Ronaldinho and Frank Rijkaard have fallen out over Ron's absence from training 48 hours before Barcelona's game against Celta Vigo is pure gold for bloggers.

Ron was left out of the Barca team but Leo Messi stepped up admirably and Barca claimed a 3-2 win courtesy of a late Eidur Gudjohnsen goal.

Rijkaard was also angry that his playmaker was doing promotional just hours before under-performing in Barca's 3-0 European Super Cup defeat to Seville.

Here's hoping this doesn't mark the beginning of a tragic Ronaldo-esque decline for Ronaldinho, where sponsorship and media appearances take precedence over what he does best.