Rijkaard enjoys ‘peaceful’ hype

FRANK RIJKAARD admits the serious injury to Petr Cech has taken the usual sting out of Barcelona’s visit to Chelsea.

The hype, the expectation and the mind games which have surrounded recent games between the two clubs have been absent ahead of tomorrow’s Champions League Group A game.

Barcelona boss Rijkaard claims that is partly because of the situation involving Chelsea goalkeeper Cech, who is in hospital recovering from an operation on a depressed fracture of his skull, sustained in Saturday’s win at Reading.