Blaugrana Flashback: May 17, 2006

On this day in 2006 something or other happened in Paris.

Visca el Barça!

Please post your favorite memory of this match and day. Mine is what Juliano Belletti did moments after the above shot went in:

By Isaiah

Isaiah is a co-founder and lead writer for Barcelona Football Blog. He currently lives in the greater Philadelphia area.

82 comments

  1. that might be one of the most emotional and touching celebrations ever.

    With 10 minutes left the game was won, and everyone knew it. the relief.

  2. I ran around my friends house after Belletti scored. Senior year of high school. We all ordered a box of pizza for ourselves. Good times.

    Revista De La Liga – 05-17-11

    /http://hotfile.com/dl/118134602/bda2a06/Revista_De_La_Liga_-_17-05-11.avi.html

    /http://www.fileserve.com/file/zHfHBB6/Revista De La Liga – 17-05-11.avi

    /http://www.uploadstation.com/file/umutarT/Revista_De_La_Liga_-_17-05-11.avi

    /http://www.filesonic.com/file/1020829711/Revista De La Liga – 17-05-11.avi

    Credit to Pakman at fbtz.com

  3. My favorite thing about the day was Iniesta. Especially in the second half he was this little tiny guy on the field and I remember thinking his jersey was way too big for him. But he had an excellent game and that’s when I realized he was special.

    1. Absolutely, many people credit Larson for the assists, but it was Iniesta who came on as a substitute and changed the game. That is what I remember most about this game.

    2. Funny, me too. I loved his style before that game, but on that day I saw this courageous young guy come in, consistently drive into their defense without fear, and he had the skills to do it. I knew he would be special in his career, but had no idea how much.

  4. When the referee stood for 30 seconds near the players telling them to get up, yet they keep celebrating, Belletti, Eto’o and Valdes crying.

  5. @Bassam :

    I wasn’t complaining about the Sprinklers name, It doesn’t bother me at all, I was simply telling fellow cule BarcaGirl_Indo who came back sour from a visit to your blog that she shouldn’t go there if it bothers her since she’ll find things like Sprinklers, Olympic Diving Team (This is the one that bothers me) among other stuff like Andres who makes his usual “joke” of breaking a player’s leg.

    Where are you from, Bassam ? Currently and Originally ?

    1. Bassam lives in a dungeon in a castle high atop of a hill over looking Mordor. He cackles madly whenever anything negative befalls Barcelona and his minions fan him with Quetzal feathers they have rudely plucked from those poor birds, which they then leave to die.

      He also hates kittens.

      The only question remaining is why he bothers to live high atop a hill if he’s just going to skulk around the dungeon all the time…

    5. No problem, I really don’t mind the EE nickname. But to say i like it i would be lying! And since someone brought it up, i just wanted to clarify my stand. Not only that, but we have been accussed on the blog (me and the other moderators) at tolerating trolls more so than the regulars. So in exchange for well behavior, we are trying to limit trolling or someone bad mouthing the team. It serves better for discussion and for me. If a barcelona fan doesn’t say anything wrong and gets mistreated, then sending a warning or banning whoever did the assault makes it easier and more justified. Again, suffering from the lack of registration. We get a troll every other day.

      I am, as opposed to what Isaiah believes, from Lebanon. I am currently living in Sacramento and actually going for a 3 month vacation to lebanon in 2 weeks. There is a horse farm right behind my house that i know on good authority that Isaiah is going to spend some time during his tour of exotic places honeymoon. Little does he know that Sacramento horses bite. They bite hard.

    6. what?
      I didnt even see when they wrote Sprinklers, Olympic Diving Team…or about Andres breaking legs jokes… 😀

      I was sour about Andres who use Abidal presence in the squad (leg 2 UCL semifinal ) as another reason to bash us and called us cheater… 🙄

    1. The Eto’o celebrations are always very dramatic. May be that is my perception. I remember that Eto’o celebration, and also the celebration after he scored against Manchester United, in the subsequent CL final.
      The Baletti goal did not have much impact on me, because Arsenal were playing a game of attrition at that point, since they were a man down. I knew the goal was in the coming and would happen at some point.

  8. Also when Giuly scored the ball after Lehmann’s being sent off in a Pedro-esque manner.

    1. Now, now, Diego, when Pedro gets sent off he does so in a Lehmann-esque manner, not the other way around.

      Oh you meant…

  10. Definitely Larsson. The man was so calm that night, and when he provided that assist to Eto’o… Amazing stuff. And when Belletti scored, I jumped all over. 😀

  11. Back in 2006, soccer was,to me, a game played by kids. All 4 of ours played(a couple still do). Soccer was about carpooling and snack lists and making sure that the mud from the cleats didn’t make it into the house.

    I had some idea that soccer was played by adults, mainly by them foreigners 🙄

    Dark days, those! 🙁 Thanks for sharing your memories with me and giving me a hint of our club’s history.

    2. 😆

      As an aside, I’ll always be fond of Liverpool. They are our friends’ team, the friends that introduced us to club football(same friends also love Barca and told us about this little guy named Messi). Names like Man U, Liverpool, Chelsea, FCB, Real Madrid, Arsenal weren’t even known to me (aside from any geographical significance the name may have had).

  12. I was a poor college student back then who had no means of watching the game, so I wore my outdated gray Barca jersey and heard about the news after it ended. Hooray for now having an income, and barring that, free streams of Barca games!

  13. Patience was the virtue that day. As much as we dominated the ball…the opening wouldn’t come.

    Then 2 substitutions-Iniesta and Larsson. This got me excited because I had seen Iniesta perform marvelously during the season, and the same for Larsson’s finishing throughout the season. So this was what I was waiting for!!!

    First goal – Iniesta to Larsson’s feather touch… and Eto’o with the beautiful fake out of the Almunia!!! AWESOME!!! If Almunia reacts a whisker sooner…he blocks it! GREAT!! I was so happy that we had tied it up after our goal was called off, and Eboue had DIVED for their crossing goal.

    So yeah…as mentioned before– NOW it’s GAME ON!!

    Second Goal – Iniesta’s shot blocked! Ball gets to Beletti (Another 2nd half sub!) His give and go with Larsson was EPIC! EPIC! EPIC! EPIC! EPIC!

    When he fell to his knees, hands covering his face…..(even thinking about it today) I had tears of joy!! What happiness! That has to be my favorite moment watching a soccer game. I have never felt such emotion watching a game.

    Seeing Valdes crying alone while pointing up at the sky…GREAT STUFF!

  14. I still remember that day. For the first time, my whole family sat down to watch the game together. My Dad, who adored Henry, didn’t know I was rooting for FCB. But he was not impressed by Arsenal and their ‘English’ style (playing for the 1-0 win).

    It was the dead of the night and my Mum had already gone to sleep (Yeah, blame it on Arsenal) and my dad was about to. Then Eto’o scored and I let out a high pitched shriek, couldn’t help it. The look on their faces was AWESOME! My Dad said that I really didn’t need to do that. How do I convince him that it came naturally? Then Belletti scored, all was forgotten and I had to wait 20 odd minutes to go to another room and cry my heart out. (It was a hard year :*| )

    Yeah, that night was wonderful!

    1. Wow, we look scary in our away kit!

      Imagine next season when we play RM…they in white and we in black.

      Wow, the pastel color days are over. We’re now bad axx.

    2. Well, you can’t be much more clearly opposite from los blancos than an all-black jersey! It’ll be a nice change from the hyper bright away jerseys we’ve been having.

    3. I love the bright jerseys. Saw the rest of the kits on Barcastuff and must say i feel sorry for VV, his kit is ugly. I mean green! really! And please tell me the black, red and yellow kit is our third kit. I mean who design these things, so ugly.

    4. I’ll always have great memories of the bright jerseys (Iniesta waving his yellow jersey after scoring vs. Chelsea being top of the list), but change is good too. Plus I won’t be a walking neon light when I wear the new away jerseys. 😀

    7. I like the green goalkeeper kit! But then green is my favourite colour (but not the current minty version). Like the black kit, don’t like the home kit. Skinny stripes. 🙁
      And I wish they had stuck with red shorts instead of blue.

      Oh well, I’ll get used to it. I didn’t really like the 2009-2010 kit at first either. 2008-2009 remains an all-time classic.

    8. I do not like at all!!! It doesn’t look like Barca to me. I find it hard picturing Messi scoring a goal and kissing the badge of that shirt.

      The black away kit looks interesting and different, I may eventually like it.

    9. Wow, I can’t picture it either. Now that I think of it I can’t picture Messi in any of these shirts. GOOD LORD HELP

    10. I think he’ll still look good as long as they fit him and not two sizes bigger like his other shirts.

    11. Well at least the darn tree is gone.

      I hate myself for saying it, but it doesn’t look half bad when our captain’s wearing it (It’s strange to see a uniform tucked in on the capita). If they had to have a sponsor than it’s not as bad as I thought it would be. Love the black. Is that jacket that Thiago is wearing purple? Must have the purple jacket. Oops, probably can’t afford the jacket.

      In other words, those marketing the darn thing knew I’d tolerated if if saw the captain wearing it. I’m gullible. One can even get used to hanging if one hangs long enough!

    12. Yeah me too, i actually like our home kit. And it has a better fit than our old ones, especially the shorts.

    13. Yeah, fit is more important to us girls 😉

      It would be ssssooooooooo much better with Unicef back on it!

    15. Relegated to the back is not good enough. Especially since it’s on the butt. We won’t see Pique’s logo since he tucks.

    16. And why do I never see my spelling errors until after I hit the submit button?

    17. I was referring to what you said:

      “Unicef back on it!”

      “Unicef is on the back”

      lol

    18. Me personally liked the Gold Tree on our shirts than qatar foundation pasted on it like.

    19. To the above commenters: We’re not going to wear any color other than blaugrana against RM. Did we wear mint this year?

    20. Oh…that’s right.

      And all along I thought I’d see us in black while they’re in white. That would have been awesome. Agree with soma4 that the black kit’s not so bad.

      Instead, we are in our…..quite ugly home shirts.

      Still, it’s not so bad. At least there’s no tree. And Puyi does look good in it.

    21. You right but wouldn’t it be cool if we wore the black kit at the Bernabeu. That would be badass. I’m gonna miss the bright colours though, i’m kinda used to them.

    22. The black one is too black for me. I can’t imagine Messi in it. Poor Bojan will get lost in it. 🙁

    23. Yep, they shoulda put a bit of colour in it. It’s still fine for me it’s just that we not used to something this plain.

  17. I can’t for the life of me find that great video of Iniesta’s performance in this game. I’m pretty sure it was taken down. 🙁 He was definitely the highlight for me.

  18. My favorite memory has to be Giuly crying after the final…he was one of my favorite players in that team…looooved him!
    The goal by samu was also veeeryy intense cause the clock was ticking and we were not creating any chances…and just when I started to lose hope…GOOOOAAAALL!
    The night before the final i had a dream where we were losing 1-0 to arsenal and we just couldn’t score! I woke up in fear! So you can imagine my relief when samu scored… 🙂

  20. Just saw a video on sport.es about the new kits.

    Thiago is one of the main ‘actors’. I doubt Pep wants to let him go for Cesc…

  21. My God i just saw the new Man U kits and i’ve never seen such ugliness in my life. It has got to be a Nike thing surely.

  22. We are so ashamed to put the QF name on our shirt that made the away kit black? :S

  23. Not a fan of the home shirt. I’m not as hostile towards the away shirt, but it’s going to take me a while to get used to UNICEF being relegated to the butt area.

    Glad I bought my Xavi jersey this year (though I regret not getting the 08-09 one when I had the chance). Maybe I’ll buy a couple more before next season.

  25. I don’t know which to buy ..

    Next Season’s Away shirt or Copa America Argentina’s Away Shirt ?!

    Opinions ?

  26. Anyone with a download link for that match? All the reminiscing makes me want to watch it again. 🙂

  27. I actually don’t mind the black away kit, it’ll look good with the captain’s armband (unless they changed that too :S). That reminds me, doesn’t the Catalan NT wear a black kit too?

    I used to be in the old “we should never wear black because we look like EE” group but come to think of it, we’ll probably look a lot better in a black kit than them anyway. So no harm done.

    Imagine Don Andres in all black?

  28. I remember at Santos Inocentes Day (Spain’s version of April Fools’ Day), away jersey for next season was ‘leaked’ in the internet…

    and it’s white…many of my friends got heart attack… 😆

  29. http://sports.yahoo.com/soccer/blog/dirty-tackle/post/DT-Exclusive-Iker-and-Villa-trade-insults-over-?urn=sow-wp1714

    Very Funny 😀

    Oh and I didnt like the shirts until I saw them on the players, now I quite like them, if only they could shift that silly looking sponser logo. I actually dont mind all that much having them as a sponsor, but it just looks so basic.

    Black kit will have to grow on me, because although black is awesome and is so anti-m****d, its just a bit plain and iniesta is gonna look suuuuuuuper vampire-ghostish

  30. The third kit is the mint green one! Hahaha.

    And I thought we’re done with pastel.

    4. It’s okay. I just ordered the Xavi away jersey. I’m in good company.

      *weeps in the corner*

  32. I had put re-posted some pictures on my blog a couple of days after Paris. Was an emotional night that and it was wonderful. That was the season when I ventured into reading Barcelona blogs and visiting forums. I signed up to Xtratime. Was great to feel one with people from all around the globe. My favourite part about football is how people will come together no matter what their background to support the one team that makes them feel. That was the year I realised Barca was my lifeforce. And I am not exaggerating. The last couple of years have been tough. I got by with a little help from my friends and Barca. I have always supported FCB since I started understanding the game, but 2005-06 had a strong magnetic attraction. Like the One Ring and its Master.

    **http://spacecrunch.blogspot.com/2006/05/campions-dcampions.html

    In the run-up to the final, there was this article on Times UK about Dinho. What a player he was those two seasons. Absolute monster. Head and shoulders above the rest. A sedate final though. Ah! Found the link – **http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/european_football/article718494.ece. Absolutely brilliant article. This is my favourite part of the article:

    ____Barcelona played away to AC Milan in the semi-finals of the Champions League last month, we were moved out of the hotel we had stayed in for the Milan v Lyons match two weeks earlier and had to travel across town to a less lovely hotel. I was happy with the reason: Barcelona were staying in our old hotel and they needed our rooms.
    A couple of journalists and broadcasters did manage to keep hold of theirs, one of whom was John Helm, the commentator. On the afternoon of the match, John decided to grab a bit of shuteye and nestled down for 40 winks. He was in that lovely zone in between deep sleep and wide awake when he was roused by a thud like noise every few minutes against the wall by his head. There was laughing and joking going on outside the room so he got up and poked his head outside of the door, ready no doubt to be a bit cross with whoever was disturbing his rest. In the corridor about four hours ahead of kick-off were Ronaldinho and his team-mate Ludovic Giuly volleying the ball back and forth to each other, heading the ball to various parts of the other’s anatomy and having about as much fun as schoolboys in the playground. John smiled and went back to bed. What else could he do? Confiscate the Fifa Player of the Year’s football?
    Football is why Ronaldinho does this job, not fame, fortune or recognition, but playing the game he adores.____

    I love this reminiscing. I am guessing we will have a Flashback on 27th as well.

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