They were the greatest team of schoolboys that Barcelona had ever produced. It included the incomparable Leo Messi but also Cesc Fabregas and Gerard Pique, now three of the best and most-decorated players in the world.
Little surprise that even though they played against teams a year older, they won most of their games by huge margins as well as all the tournaments they entered.
HOW THEY COMPARE OVER THE LAST THREE SEASONS
LIONEL MESSI
Games: 115
Goals: 104 - A goal every 91 minutes
Dribbles: 874
Shots: 384 - 65% on target
Tackles: 102 - 80% won
Passes: 5,810 - 86% accurate
Assists: 42
CESC FABREGAS
Games: 87
Goals: 28 - A goal every 258 minutes
Dribbles: 200
Shots: 171 - 54% on target
Tackles: 182 - 75% won
Passes: 6,026- 80% accurate
Assists: 39
At Barcelona there is huge pride in that talented generation but also a chilling realisation that they might have lost all three of those star players.
And on Wednesday night, when Arsenal take on Barcelona in the last 16 of the Champions League, there will be sadness that one of the trio will be appearing for the opposition.
Carles Rexach is perhaps the most authoritative person to speak about FC Barcelona. On five occasions he has stepped in to manage the side but he was also a fine player in the team of the early 70s that included Johan Cruyff.
He was then assistant to Cruyff when the Dutchman managed the so-called Dream Team to the club's first European Cup win in 1992.
Dream team: Johan Cruyff (left) and Carles Rexach (right) guided Barcelona to the 1992 European Cup
But it was in his role as technical director just over 10 years ago that Rexach perhaps made his greatest contribution in helping to create this current Barcelona team, as the man who signed Messi.
And yet, he was also at the club when another of their greatest hopes chose to leave for Arsenal. 'The reality is that Cesc left Barcelona because he wanted to,' he recalls.
'This is what hurt people, that he said: "I'm the one who wants to leave". If he had stayed here he probably would have won more. But it was the same with Pique. He went to England to Manchester United and he didn't play well there, so we could buy him back quite cheap. Barca players never really want to leave but at that time the coaches weren't picking players from the Barca B and they feared there wouldn't be opportunities.
'Whenever it was Cruyff and me, we tried to bring in the youngsters, like Pep Guardiola, and give them a chance. The problem was other trainers came - the Dutch ones [Louis van Gaal and Frank Rijkaard] - who brought other Dutch players or players from outside Barca.
'Even Rijkaard didn't really recognise the full potential of Messi at first. Only when he played Messi in the Joan Gamper Cup, a preseason friendly, against AC Milan, did he begin to realise and started playing him with Eto'o and Ronaldinho.'
Back in 2003, when Fabregas was making a defining choice in the run-up to his 16th birthday, that was a fact of which Arsenal were able to make great play.
Arsenal's Spanish scout, Frannie Cagigao, had spotted Fabregas and when the player was watched it was obvious within minutes that he was exceptional.
It was then impressed on Fabregas that his development might be slowed at Barca, whereas at Arsenal he would be thrust into the first team by Arsene Wenger.
Guardiola, the current Barca coach, says Fabregas should not be blamed for his decision.
'I don't think you can say that he would have been a better player if he had stayed here,' adds Guardiola. 'He has turned into a very good player at Arsenal.'
The bond between Guardiola and Fabregas runs deep.
When Fabregas was struggling in his early teens following the separation of his parents, his youth-team coach Rodolfo Borrell, recognising the emotional impact it had on the club's protégé, arranged a gift to improve his mood.
It was a shirt signed by Guardiola, then the Barca captain.
On it, Guardiola had written: 'One day you will be the Barca No. 4!'
Last summer, Guardiola tried to achieve just that, making Fabregas the subject of a £30million bid.
Since then, joining this Barca team has been a clear objective for Fabregas.
Yet, Fabregas remains frustrated.
Although his feats with Spain's national team are exemplary, with World Cup and European Championship wins in a team populated by Barca players, at club level he has won just the FA Cup in 2005.
In the same period, Messi, the timid Argentinian boy he once befriended as a 13-year-old at the club's youth academy, has won the Champions League, four La Liga titles, the Copa del Rey and the World Club Cup.
And though Fabregas is widely expected to join Barca this summer, with Chelsea and Real Madrid now also showing interest, a homecoming may prove problematic, according to Rexach.
'It will be difficult to bring Cesc back now,' says Rexach, 64. 'Firstly, because of the money it would cost, but also because Barca have young players coming through in that position who are very good and we have to look at that, too.
'It would be different if there was no-one else in that position, then they would have to pay the money to get him. But there are others coming through in the team.
'There are already three good players in our midfield [Xavi, Andres Iniesta and Sergio Busquets] and another three in Seydou Keita, Ibrahim Afellay and Javier Mascherano. Then there are younger ones coming up from the reserves. You need to look at what you have, what it will cost to get something else and what you will need to replace in a few years.'
Rexach can at least content himself that he did secure the signature of the player widely recognised as the world's greatest, though even that was fraught with difficulties, for while Arsenal were scouting Fabregas, they were inevitably drawn to his prodigious team-mate.
Arsenal had investigated the possibility of a double deal but the 15-year-old Messi had only an Argentinian passport and under both FIFA and British immigration rules it would have been impossible to bring him to England.
Nevertheless, Messi almost slipped through Barca's net. He had been brought to Catalonia in the autumn of 2000 by his father, Jorge, largely in desperation.
Messi, who suffered from a growth deficiency, stood a mere 4ft 5in at age 13 when his local club Newell's Old Boys, in his home town of Rosario, and the Buenos Aires giants of River Plate rejected him as not worth the cost of the growth hormone implants he required.
After two weeks of trials, Barcelona looked as though they might reach the same conclusion.
'My responsibilities were more to the first team at that time so I hadn't seen him play,' says Rexach.
'After the two weeks of trials, I asked people who had watched him but they all had different opinions: some said he dribbled too much, others that he was too small.
'His father was getting annoyed and threatened to go back to Argentina. I said: "No, wait another day and I'll organise a game. And I'll decide yes or no". But when I set up the game I was a bit sneaky because I made him play with ones that were a year above him.
'I was a little late for the trial and the match had started. I walked into the training ground, down the touchline and along the goal-line, walking and watching. By the time I had reached the bench on the other side, I said: "Sign him up now". For me it was very clear. He was a genius, I was sure. What Messi knew, you can't teach. It's instinctive. And I always think this moment was my greatest success.
'Some of my colleagues said: "Why should we take him on now when he's only 12 because in seven or eight years, whenever he's playing, we might no longer be here". I had to be a pain in the neck to get the technical staff to agree. No-one else was that sure. The problem was that he was coming from abroad so young. But I insisted.'
Despite Rexach having made his decision, Messi's father became frustrated at Barcelona's delay in drawing up a contract.
To end the uncertainty, one of the most important deals in Barca's history was clinched - on a paper napkin.
Rexach explains: 'After the trial, I told his father, Jorge, that we would definitely sign him and to go to the club and get them to do the contract. But every day he went, they told him to come back the next day or in two days.
'His dad was getting angry, saying: "Stop messing us about". We met in a restaurant at the tennis club at Pompeia on Montjuic [the hill that overlooks Barcelona] so I looked for some paper to write a contract, to calm him down.
'There wasn't any, so I got the napkin and wrote there that, as technical secretary, I would guarantee that we sign him. I just did it to keep the dad happy and I signed it, as did his father and an agent, Josep Maria Minguella.
'I always assumed that the napkin was torn up later when they signed the official contract. But then I discovered that they kept it in an album and now it's famous.'
For Rexach, who had won every trophy possible in his various roles at the club - La Liga, Copa del Rey, European Cup, UEFA Cup, Cup-winners' Cup - and who was the Spanish league's top scorer in 1971, this became his seminal moment.
'I played for the club, was coach, was an assistant, was technical director but now I'm nearly better known for signing Messi than for what I achieved myself,' he says.
As someone who has witnessed more than 60 great years at the club - watching, playing with, coaching or managing the likes of Laszlo Kubala, Cruyff, Diego Maradona, Romario, Ronaldo and Ronaldinho, he remains the definitive judge of the modern era.
While he does not think this is necessarily the greatest team that Barca have ever produced - 'It's easier now for them to win more often because La Liga is just down to Barca or Real Madrid, whereas in my day there was Valencia and Atletico Madrid' - regarding one player he is unequivocal.
'I believe that Messi changed the era for Barca. He's taken the team to a different level. In the past, there were Barca teams with good players but they were inconsistent, so when we came up against the big teams like Liverpool in the top European competitions we didn't always win.'
And at a club whose cast list of former players includes several who are recognised among the world's greatest, could we be witnessing the greatest Barcelona player?
The man who signed him does not hesitate in his response.
'If he continues like this then, yes, he will be.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1356378/It-hurt-Barcelona-Cesc-Fabregas-chose-to-Arsenal--big-winner-Lionel-Messi.html