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A sweet and sour season

The 2006-2007 season ended on a sweet and sour note, with defeat to Real Madrid in the ACB League final. On a more positive note, Barça won the Copa del Rey and ensured Euroleague qualification.

The worst part was the start of the season, when the team played highly irregularly and suffered more than it had to. In the play off for the ACB final, they witnessed how their eternal rival beat them to celebrate the trophy in the Palau. The following are some of the main points of the 2006/07 season.

Irregularities from the start

Having signed Mario Kasun and Jaka Lakovic, Barça’s basketball team looked to have found a winning formula. But the pre-season was not promising, with neither the Super Cup nor the Catalan League being won. But this was only the start of a long season for Winterthur Barça.

To make up for the early disappointments, Barça then pulled off a remarkable achievement in becoming the first European team to beat NBA opposition, with the Palau Sant Jordi the venue as Barça overcame Allen Iverson’s mighty Philadelphia 76ers.

The club also made amends by finally paying tribute to Nacho Solozábal 14 seasons after his retirement.

Unexpected title

Malaga was once again a happy place for FC Barcelona. After winning the Copa there in 2001, with a stellar performance from Pau Gasol, the first team once again did the business in Andalusia. Winterthur Barça stormed to victory with three wins by enormous margins, and that proved the stimulus for a vast improvement in Dusko Ivanovic’s team’s performances. But getting there had not been easy. They almost missed out on qualification and it was only thanks to an unexpected Pamesa Valencia loss that they squeezed through. They finished seventh, the lowest league placing to offer a Copa del Rey berth.

Missed out of Final Four

Barça seemed far more comfortable playing in the Euroleague 2006/07 and that was where they enjoyed their best moments. But Winterthur failed at the last, losing in the quarter finals to Unicaja Malaga 2-1 in the series, with the deciding game at the Martín Carpena being lost in the final seconds. Pepe Sánchez converted a three pointer that sent Malaga wild and meant Barça missed out on the trip to Athens.

But despite not going to the Final Four, in the previous rounds Barcelona had demonstrated some of the finest basketball the continent has to offer.

Against the eternal rival

They started transferring this level of play to the ACB, where they had more problems, especially in an irregular and complicated early season. Some unacceptable losses had the fans in despair, but the team managed to readdress the situation. Winterthur beat the winners of the regular season, Tau Ceràmica, in the semi finals and thus ensured a place in the Euroleague for the following season. But there was still more to come, the final itself against the old enemy Real Madrid. The series was lost in game four at the Palau, but only after some tremendous matches in Vistalegre, where Winterthur Barça had lost two games they had very much in their hands. Real Madrid proved that little bit too strong on both days.

Navarro and De la Fuente leave

Two of the club’s most emblematic players said farewell at the end of the 2006/07 season. Rodrigo de la Fuente put an end to his Barça career after more than a decade at the club. The team captain joined the club in 1996. Meanwhile, Joan Carles Navarro decided it was time to move up in the world and Barça understood his wishes and lowered the get-our clause in his contract. ‘La Bomba’ said goodbye to Barcelona and left for Memphis and the Grizzlies to team up with an old friend, Pau Gasol.