BARCELONA
CHAMPIONS OF EUROPE 2006
CELEBRATION PACK

The 2006 UEFA Champions League Final took place at the Stade de France in Paris, on Wednesday the 17th May, with Barcelona taking on Arsenal, who were looking to clinch their first European title.

 

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With just 18 minutes played, Arsenal keeper Jens Lehmann raced out of his goal and brought down Samuel Eto'o on the edge of the box, receiving a Red card and became the first person to be sent off in a European cup final, with Pires the man sacrificed to bring on Manuel Almunia, Arsenal would have to play the rest of the game with 10 men.

 

 

Despite the numerical disadvantage it was Arsenal who took the lead, with Sol Campbell heading in from a superb free kick delivery from Thierry Henry, 1-0 to the Arsenal! 

 

 

Edmilson was taken off at half time and replaced by Andres Iniesta, who's pass through to Larsson was precise and the flick on from the Swede released Eto'o to level for the Catalan club, 1-1 with 14 minutes left. Just 4 minutes later and Larsson was the provider again, as he slipped in marauding full back Juliano Belletti to fire Barcelona into the lead, a lead they would hold to win them the Champions League!

 

 

Corinthian commemorated the win by releasing the Barcelona Champions Of Europe 2006 Celebration Pack, which features the back 5 of goal keeper Victor Valdes, Carles Puyol, Rafael Marquez, Juliano Belletti and Giovanni Van Bronckhorst, all sculpts were previously released, with Van Bronckhorst appearing in the lime green away kit.

 

 

Ludovic Giuly and Deco are in home kit, while Mark Van Bommel is in the away kit, as he had already featured in 2005/06 home kit as part of Series 31 Terrific Transfers, the same applies to Ronaldinho, who was in home kit as part of Series 32, which was released at the 2006 Corinthian Convention.

 

 

Henrik Larsson and Samuel Eto'o are in home kit, both previously used sculpts, with the final member of the team pack being Andres Iniesta. This was the very first and indeed only ProStars figure that Corinthian would release of Iniesta, with his figure being in constant demand and seldom seen for sale outside the team pack.

 

 

It is worth mentioning all 12 players featured in the final, the 2 who played the final the final but not included in the pack are Edmilson and Oleguer, Edmilson was omitted to make way for other figures while a new sculpt would have been required to include Oleguer and i can assume Corinthian preferred to use existing sculpts than create an all new one that they would be unlikely to use again.

 

 

The release date for the Barcelona Champions of Europe 2006 Celebration Pack was the 30th October 2006, with just 2006 being produced and an initial retail price of £45. Each pack contained 12 figures, 12 collector cards, an individually numbered certificate of authenticity and also a free platinum pack of one of the figures, with just 167 of each platinum being made, each coming with an individually numbered collector card.