Frenkie de Jong has grown to become an integral component for Xavi Hernandez’s FC Barcelona squad in the last few years. His presence on the pitch is key for the Barcelona team, as was keenly felt when he had to miss several games due to an injury earlier in this season.
His stature at Barcelona has grown off the field as well, as Frenkie is now one of the team’s four captains. The midfielder reached an important milestone in his Barcelona career recently, as he completed his 200 appearances for the Catalan club by playing in the match against Unionistas.
As SPORT has reported, the Dutchman spoke to the club’s media after meeting this important milestone, and talked about his aspiration to win the remaining titles with the Catalan club this season:
“I am very proud to reach 200 games. It’s a great honor to play for Barça, it means something important, but I want to win titles. That is more important than playing many games.”
“We didn’t perform well against Madrid. But I don’t think one game should define the season. We lost the final against Madrid, they deserved to win, it was fair.”
“We have to improve, but it doesn’t mean the season is already bad. Three titles are still on the line; we are in the quarterfinals of the Copa Del Rey, in the Champions League. We will try everything possible to turn around the league.”
The midfielder also identified some of the team’s weaknesses this season, and gave his opinion on what needs to be done to improve the team’s form going forward:
“We have to improve, we know that. The quality is there, and the game is not bad, but we lack decisiveness, and concentration. We have to improve in being concentrated throughout the entire match. If we do all that, we have a very good squad to fight for everything.”
“Maybe we have created more chances than last year, but it’s true that defensively, as a team, sometimes we are not focused for the full 90 minutes. You can’t give anything away to the opponent.”
Frenkie also assessed his team’s chances to win La Liga, and made it clear that Barcelona want to win both the league and the Champions League:
“It depends on Madrid and Girona, but I believe we have a squad, and if we improve some things, we have a chance to win many of the remaining matches.“
“And I think we can still fight for the League. If you participate in a competition, you do it to win it. Everyone wants to win the Champions League, we do too. It’s not that if we don’t win it, it would be a disaster…”
Frenkie also analyzed his team’s upcoming fixture in this last competition, i.e., the Champions League:
“Napoli is a very good team; they are the champions of Italy. They have very good players and a lot of talent. We’ll see because there are games before that, but we are excited to be in the Champions League Round of 16 after being eliminated for two consecutive years.”
“We want to advance to the next round and will do everything possible. These matches are different. Napoli is not doing well as compared to last year, but they are still a very tough opponent.”
