Henrik Larsson admits he almost didn't play in 2006 Champions League final because of Lionel Messi
How Henrik Larsson's 2006 Champions League final cameo almost didn't happen
Henrik Larsson has revealed how an 18-year-old Lionel Messi almost prevented his game-changing performance for Barcelona in the 2006 Champions League final from happening.
Barca were due to face Arsenal in the showpiece event in Paris, their first in the competition since winning the European Cup, as it was then known, 14 years earlier in 1992.
Larsson’s impact off the bench is legendary, entering the game with half an hour to go but with his team trailing 1-0 to the Gunners, who were down to 10 players.
The Swede’s intelligent touch soon laid on the Barcelona equaliser for Samuel Eto’o, while he then set up what proved to be the winner for Juliano Belletti four minutes after that.
But nursing an injury in the weeks beforehand and far from guaranteed a place in the matchday squad of 18 players, things could have easily been so different.
“I was hoping to make the squad [but] I knew that we had one player too many travelling to Paris,” Larsson explained in the latest episode of James Richardson’s Kings of Europe podcast.
“Two or three weeks before, I got a feeling in my hamstring, so I was out for a while. At the same time, Messi also gets a feeling in his hamstring.”
In the end, it would come down to who trained better, Larsson or Messi.
He continued: “We travelled two days before the game and got some training sessions there. [Staff] just felt [I] trained good, finished good after the practice when we did the finishing drill. We can’t look past you. Even if I don’t know, it’s just between me and Leo in the stands and they opted for me [in the squad]. That day, that was a wise decision.”
That final was Larsson’s last game for Barcelona to end a memorable two-year spell at the club, but he admitted their original approach to sign him after leaving Celtic was ‘a little bit bad timing’, although a deal was quickly wrapped up in a slightly unconventional way – the player left his wife and agent to hammer out the details because he was preoccupied at Euro 2004.
“[Sweden] were playing against Holland in the knockout stages of Euro 2004,” he recalled. “[Barcelona] wanted me to come. My wife called me while we were at the Euros and said, ‘Barcelona are interested in your services’, and I said, ‘Yeah, they have to wait’.
“My wife just chuckled and said, ‘They’re not going to wait for you’. Then I said, ‘Yeah, but then you have to go over with my agent and get the contract in order and I will talk with them as soon as we are ready [after] the Euros’, because I wanted to stay focused.”
Barca announced the deal to sign Larsson four days after Sweden’s Euro 2004 exit.
“Obviously, coming to the club, I’d been watching Barcelona since I was a young boy,” he said.
“I remember growing up and watching the ‘Dream Team’ as well with the players like [Michael] Laudrup, [Ronald] Koeman, Romario, [Hristo] Stoichkov. [Pep] Guardiola was there as well, and that was just amazing to watch. Then, to go there myself, I had to pinch myself a little bit.”
LISTEN NOW
Listen to the Henrik Larsson interview in full in the latest episode of ‘James Richardson’s Kings of Europe’ - the latest podcast from BT Sport Pods out today across major podcast platforms.
Every Monday, journalist James Richardson interviews a Champions League winner from the past 30 years, providing unique insights into some of the biggest moments in European football history: btsport.com/pods