Last update 6 March, 2023 por Alberto Llopis

Fifth of the Mini aiming high in the mid 90. En la temporada 95-96, Things did not look good in Barcelona. The team was in full remodeling after a glorious previous stage that led him to win 4 leagues and a European Cup. The Dream Team had given way a set that still hand Johan Cruyff tried to deal as could the great athletic double and a Valencia where a newcomer Pedja Mitjatovic dazzled all and sundry.

New signings not just consolidate (except Luis Figo) and there were few alternatives. Between them, the most fruitful was to raise a number of young boys from the quarry to the first team in order to prepare the future more than the present. High quality and enormous goalscoring, and they arrived to the first team Albert Celades, Roger Garcia, Oscar Garcia, Toni Velamazan, Dark-haired or a short bald man who astonished the world, Spaniard Ivan de la Peña.

A generation with a huge talent

These players who gave name to the Fifth Mini to play their games at the Mini Estadi quickly conquered the fans. showmanship, effectiveness and goalscoring ability were all one. Andorran Celades put the versatility, Roger with power shots midfield, Óscar It was the second goal line, and De la Peña magic, pass into the space where apparently there was nothing but grass.

Cruyff hand these players soon highlighted up to become key pieces of the U-21 Spanish. Sin embargo, what it promised to be a batch of players to the purest style than the Quinta del Vulture She vanished with the same speed as it appeared. The arrival of Bobby Robson bench with a plague of star signings (Ronaldo, Couto, Blanc, Trust me, Popescu's Figo or Stoichkov) first and the entry of Louis Van Gaal with a number of compatriots (Bogarde, Reiziguer, Boer brothers, Klivert o Overmars) theirs eventually sink this group of young.

What it was the fifth race of the Mini?

Ivan de la Pena, dearest had to leave the club when pierced 2.500 million pesetas Lazio Rome, for several years later to consolidate as a Spanish standard. Roger Garcia He also hit the parakeet picture, before ending up saturating in the Vila-real CF and Ajax, which he would have the honor of carrying the last dorsal 14 del club. He then began a career in the dugout with his brother Óscar.

His brother Óscar, now coach, He mimicked the same way in the white team before hanging up his boots in Lleida and then train teams like Olympiakos, the Brigthon or the Celta among many others. Celades He not resorted to the enemy city, but the great rival in the capital of Spain, Real Madrid before ending up playing for Zaragoza and in the United States MLS to later start a career as a coach that took him to the lower ranks in Spain and lead an entire Valencia team in the 2019-20.

Others like Toni Velamazán and Moreno had a long career in professional football. Velamazan played 197 matches in First Division and scored 27 goals and others 42 matches in Second. He played in teams like Albacete, Extremadura and Spanish. Moreno played mainly in the Spanish Second Division but also participated in 45 First games, one of them in the first defeat in the first match of Guardiola's Barcelona in 2008. And it is that Moreno played a large part of his games in the First Division with the Numancia de Soria.

Both followed their linked paths in the world of football located in technical bodies as assistant coaches and scouting for teams such as Espanyol or Girona.

They traveled different paths which these young people and wiped out most forgotten of the footballing memory. not to Hanging by the Football, where the Fifth Mini always have a place in the nostalgic rinconcito. And it is that no generation of homegrown players can have boasted of having never filled the already extinct mini Estadi how they did it.