2010: World Cup Finals and FC Barcelona (VII)

The World Cup starts today, and to get you in the mood, here’s the final instalment of our look at the role of Barça players in every previous edition. And 2010 was the year that no fewer than eight FCB players won the trophy, with the name of Andrés Iniesta going down in the tournament’s history

- The highest number ever of Barça players, fourteen (Valdés, Piqué, Puyol, Sergio, Xavi, Iniesta, Pedro, Abidal, Messi, Villa, Dani Alves, Henry, Márquez and Touré) went to the first tournament to be played on African soil in representation of six different countries (Spain, France, Argentina, Mexico, Brazil and Ivory Coast).

- Valdés, Piqué, Puyol, Sergio, Xavi, Iniesta, Pedro and Villa all became champions, following in the footsteps of Romario (1994) and Rivaldo (2002).

- David Villa, who signed for Barça just before the tournament started, was one of the joint-top scorers in the competition, with five goals, the same as Thomas Müller (Germany), Wesley Sneijder (Holland) and Diego Forlan (Uruguay).

- There were four Barça players in FIFA’s team of the tournament (Puyol, Iniesta, Xavi and Villa).

- Three of these collected man of the match award. Villa got two (against Honduras and Portugal), Iniesta two more (against Chile and Holland) and Puyol one more (against Germany).

- Every one of Spain’s goals were scored by Barça players, namely Villa (5), Iniesta (2) and Puyol (1).

- Iniesta scored the winning goal in the final, late in the second half of extra against Holland on July 11, 2010.

- Puyol’s semi-final header against Germany was an almost exact replica of the one of scored in the famous 6-2 win at the Santiago Bernabéu. In both matches, it was Xavi who took the corner.

- Seven Barça players started the final - Puyol, Piqué, Sergio, Xavi, Iniesta, Pedro and Villa. Cesc came on later as a substitute.