FCBARCELONA.CAT

09.05.2010 23:58

Footballers back basketball champs

Jordi Clos

Five of Barca’s first team players travelled to Paris for tonight’s basketball final to get behind the Regal Barca team as they went for the Euroleague title – one more example of the excellent relations between the two squads.

After their great performance in Seville on Saturday night, Carles Puyol, Xavi Hernández, Bojan Krkic, Gerard Piqué and Sergio Busquets travelled up to Paris to watch as Regal Barca took their second Euroleague title and cheered on from their VIP seats with the rest of the nearly three thousand Barca fans in the Palais Omnisports Stadium at París-Bercy.

Late arrival

The five players and President Joan Laporta arrived late at the game, due to flight delays as a result of the volcanic ash which affected air travel throughout Europe, but their arrival in the second period was greeted by deafening cheers from the Barca fans and the five soon got into the atmosphere, dressed in their Barca basketball tops. Once the game was won, they were amongst the first to get on court and congratulate the Regal players in person.

Puyol congratulates the new champions

Captain Carles Puyol spoke to Barca TV and insisted: “if this team stay together they can go on to win a lot more. It would be wrong to single out any one player – we’re lucky that we don’t depend on a single player. We all really enjoyed the second half. They play really well and are very consistent”. Naturally, Puyol also had to field a question about his own team’s chance of glory and he replied: “we’ll try and win the league next week!”

Mutual admiration

It’s not the first time the football squad has shown its support for the Regal players and Piqué, Bojan and Busquets are regulars at the Palau whenever they can get away from their footballing commitments and the admiration is mutual – the Regal squad were all present at last season’s Champions League Final in Rome and most of them were glued to the game in Seville on Saturday.