FC Barcelona is one of only three clubs never to have been relegated from La Liga and are the most successful club in Spanish football after Real Madrid, having won twenty La Liga titles, a record twenty-five Spanish Cups, eight Spanish Super Cups, four Eva Duarte Cups and two League Cups. They are also one of the most successful clubs in European football having won fourteen official major trophies in total, including ten UEFA competitions. They have won three UEFA Champions League titles, a record four UEFA Cup Winners' Cups, a record three Inter-Cities Fairs Cups (the forerunner to the UEFA Europa League), three UEFA Super Cups and one FIFA Club World Cup. In 2009, Barcelona became the first club in Spain to win the treble of La Liga, Copa del Rey and Champions League. The club is also the only European side to have played continental football in every season since its inception in 1955. FC Barcelona became the first football team ever to win six out of six competitions in a single year thus completing the sextuple, comprising the 2008–09 La Liga, 2008–09 Copa del Rey, 2009 Supercopa de España, 2008–09 UEFA Champions League, 2009 UEFA Super Cup and 2009 FIFA Club World Cup.
Barcelona holds a long-standing rivalry with Real Madrid, with matches between the two teams referred to as "El Clásico". Unlike many other football clubs, the fans of FC Barcelona own and operate the club. The club is the world's second richest football club (€365m) in terms of revenue, only surpassed by Real Madrid.
History of FC Barcelona
On 22 October 1899, Joan Gamper placed an advert in Los Deportes declaring his wish to form a football club. A positive response resulted in a meeting at the Gimnasio Solé on 29 November where eleven players attended: Walter Wild, later to become the first director of the club, Lluís d'Ossó, Bartomeu Terradas, Otto Kunzle, Otto Maier, Enric Ducal, Pere Cabot, Carles Pujol, Josep Llobet, John Parsons and William Parsons. As a result Foot-Ball Club Barcelona was born.
Sports Notice: Our friend and companion Hans Gamper... former Swiss [football] champion, being keen on organising some football games in the city asks anyone who feels enthusiastic enough about the sport to present themselves at the office of this newspaper any Tuesday or Friday evening between the hours of 9 and 11pm.
Legend has it that Gamper was inspired to choose the club blue and red colours by FC Basel's crest. However, the Swiss team Gamper played for, FC Excelsior in his home canton of Zürich, and Merchant Taylors' School in Crosby, Merseyside, England have also been credited with or claimed to be the inspiration. FC Barcelona quickly emerged as one of the leading clubs in Spain, competing in the Campeonato de Cataluña and the Copa del Rey. In 1902, the club won its first trophy, the Copa Macaya, and also played in the first Copa del Rey final, losing 2–1 to Bizcaya.
In 1908, Joan Gamper became club president for the first time as he took over the presidency in order to save the club from disappearing altogether. The club had not won anything since the Campeonato de Cataluña in 1905 and as a result got into financial trouble. Gamper was subsequently club president on five separate occasions between 1908 and 1925 and spent 25 years at the helm. One of his main achievements was to help Barça acquire its own stadium and thus achieve a means of generating stable income.
On 14 March 1909, the team moved into the Carrer Indústria, a stadium with a capacity of 8,000. Gamper launched a campaign to recruit more club members and by 1922, the club had over 10,000. This led to the club moving again, this time to Las Cortes, which they inaugurated the same year. Las Cortes had an initial capacity of 22,000, which was later expanded to 60,000.
Gamper recruited Jack Greenwell as the first full-time manager in Barcelona's history. This saw the club's fortunes begin to improve on the field. During the Gamper era FC Barcelona won eleven Campeonato de Cataluña, six Copa del Rey and four Pyrenees Cups and enjoyed its first "golden age".
Rivera, Republic and Civil War (1923–1957)
On 14 June 1925 in a spontaneous reaction against Primo de Rivera's dictatorship, the crowd in the stadium jeered the Royal March. As a reprisal, the ground was closed for six months and Gamper was forced to relinquish the presidency of the club. In 1928, victory in the Spanish Cup was celebrated with a poem titled "Oda a Platko", which was written by a member of the Generation of '27, inspired by the heroic performance of the Barcelona keeper. On 30 July 1930, Gamper committed suicide after a period of depression brought on by personal and financial problems.
Although they continued to have players of the standing of Josep Escolà, the club now entered a period of decline, in which political conflict overshadowed sport throughout society. Barça faced a crisis on three fronts: financially, politically and in sporting terms. Although the team won the Campionat de Catalunya in 1930, 1931, 1932, 1934, 1936 and 1938, success at a national level (with the exception of the 1937 disputed title) evaded them.
A month after the Spanish Civil War began in 1936, club president Josep Sunyol was murdered by rebel soldiers near Guadarrama. In the summer of 1937, the squad was on tour in Mexico and the United States, where it was received as an ambassador of the Second Spanish Republic. That tour led to the financial security of the club, but also resulted in half the team seeking asylum in Mexico and France. On 16 March 1938, the fascists dropped a bomb on the club's offices which caused significant damage. A few months later, Barcelona was under fascist occupation and as a symbol of the 'undisciplined' Catalanism, the club, now down to just 3,486 members, faced a number of serious problems.
After the Civil War, the Catalan flag was banned and football clubs were prohibited from using non-Spanish names. These measures led to the club having its name forcibly changed to Club de Fútbol Barcelona and the removal of the Catalan flag from the club shield.
In 1943, Barcelona faced rivals Real Madrid in the semi-finals of Copa del Generalísimo. The first match at Les Corts was won by Barcelona 3–0. Before the second leg, Barcelona's players had a changing room visit from Franco's director of state security. He 'reminded' them that they were only playing due to the 'generosity of the regime'. Real Madrid dominated the match, thrashing Barça 11–1.
Despite the difficult political situation, CF Barcelona enjoyed considerable success during the 1940s and 1950s. In 1945, with Josep Samitier as coach and players like César, Ramallets and Velasco, they won La Liga for the first time since 1929. They added two more titles in 1948 and 1949. In 1949, they also won the first Copa Latina. In June 1950, Barcelona signed Ladislao Kubala, who was to be an influential figure at the club.
On a rainy Sunday of 1951, the crowd left Les Corts stadium after a 2–1 win against Santander by foot, refusing to catch any trams and surprising the Francoist authorities. The reason was simple: at the same time a tram strike was taking place in Barcelona, receiving the support of blaugrana fans. Events such as this made FC Barcelona represent much more than just Catalonia and many progressive Spaniards see the club as a staunch defender of rights and freedoms.
Coach Fernando Daucik and Ladislao Kubala, regarded by many as the club's best ever player, inspired the team to five different trophies including La Liga, the Copa del Generalísimo, the Copa Latina, the Copa Eva Duarte and the Copa Martini Rossi in 1952. In 1953, they helped the club win La Liga and the Copa del Generalísimo again.
Club de Fútbol Barcelona (1957–1974)
With Helenio Herrera as coach, a young Luis Suárez, the European Footballer of the Year in 1960, and two influential Hungarians recommended by Kubala, Sándor Kocsis and Zoltán Czibor, the team won another national double in 1959 and a La Liga and Fairs Cup double in 1960. In 1961, they became the first club to beat Real Madrid in a European Cup play-off. However, they lost 3–2 to Benfica in the final.
The 1960s were less successful for the club, with Real Madrid monopolising La Liga. The completion of the Camp Nou, finished in 1957, meant the club had little money to spend on new players. On the upside, the 60s saw the emergence of Josep Fusté and Carles Rexach and the club won the Copa del Generalísimo in 1963 and the Fairs Cup in 1966. Barça restored some pride by beating Real Madrid 1–0 in the 1968 Copa del Generalísimo final at the Bernabéu in front of Franco, with Salvador Artigas, a former republican pilot in the civil war, as coach. With the end of Franco's dictatorship in 1974 the club changed its official name back to Futbol Club Barcelona and reverted the crest to its original design, again including the Catalan flag.
The 1973–74 season saw the arrival of a new Barça legend Johan Cruyff. Already an established player with Ajax, Cruyff quickly won over the Barça fans when he told the European press he chose Barça over Real Madrid because he could not play for a club associated with Francisco Franco. He further endeared himself when he chose a Catalan name, Jordi, for his son. Next to players of quality like Juan Manuel Asensi, Carles Rexach and the talented Hugo Sotil, he helped the club win the 1973–74 season for the first time since 1960, defeating Real Madrid 5–0 at the Bernabéu along the way. He was crowned European Footballer of the Year in his first year at the club.
Núñez and the stabilization years (1978–2000)
In 1978 Josep Lluís Núñez became the first elected president of FC Barcelona, and since then the members of Barcelona have elected the club president. The process of electing a president of FC Barcelona was closely tied to Spain's transition to democracy in 1974 and the end of Franco's dictatorship. Núñez main objective was to develop Barça into a world-class club by giving to it stability both on and off the pitch. His presidency was to last for 22 years and it deeply affected the image of Barcelona, as Núñez held to a strict policy regarding wages and discipline, letting players such as Maradona, Romario and Ronaldo go rather than meeting their demands.
On 16 May 1979, the club won its first Cup Winners Cup by beating Fortuna Düsseldorf 4–3 in Basel in a final was watched by more than 30,000 travelling blaugrana fans. In June 1982, Diego Maradona was signed for a then world record fee of £3 million (€3.4 million) from Boca Juniors. In the following season, under coach Menotti, Barcelona won the Copa del Rey, beating Real Madrid. However, Maradona's time with Barça was short-lived and he soon left for Napoli. At the start of the 1984–85 season, Terry Venables was hired as manager and he won La Liga with stellar displays by German midfielder Bernd Schuster. The next season, he took the team to their second European Cup final, only to lose on penalties to Steaua Bucureşti during a dramatic evening in Seville.
After the 1986 FIFA World Cup, the English top-scorer Gary Lineker was signed along with goalkeeper Andoni Zubizarreta, but the team could not achieve success as Schuster was excluded from the team. Terry Venables was subsequently fired at the beginning of the 1987–88 season and replaced with Luis Aragonés. The season finished with the players rebelling against president Núñez, this event being known as the Hesperia mutiny, and a 1–0 victory at the Copa del Rey final against Real Sociedad.
In 1988, Johan Cruyff returned to the club as manager and he assembled the so-called Dream Team. He used a mix of Spanish players like Josep Guardiola, José Mari Bakero and Txiki Begiristain while signing international stars such as Ronald Koeman, Michael Laudrup, Romário and Hristo Stoichkov.
Under Cruyff's guidance, Barcelona won four consecutive La Liga titles from 1991 to 1994. They beat Sampdoria in both the 1989 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup final and the 1992 European Cup final at Wembley with a legendary free kick goal from Dutch international Ronald Koeman. They also won a Copa del Rey in 1990, the European Super Cup in 1992 and three Supercopa de España. With 11 trophies, Cruyff became the club's most successful manager to date. He also became the club's longest consecutive serving manager, serving 8 years. Cruyff's fortune was to change and in two seasons, he failed to win any trophies and fell out with president Núñez, resulting in his departure.
Cruyff was briefly replaced by Bobby Robson, who took charge of the club for a single season in 1996–97. He recruited Ronaldo from his previous club, PSV and delivered a cup treble winning the Copa del Rey, UEFA Cup Winners Cup and the Supercopa de España. Despite his success, Robson was only ever seen as a short-term solution, while the club waited for Louis van Gaal to become available.
Like Maradona, Ronaldo only stayed a short time as he left for Internazionale. However, new heroes such as Luís Figo, Patrick Kluivert, Luis Enrique and Rivaldo emerged and the team won a Copa del Rey and La Liga double in 1998. In 1999, the club celebrated its 'centenari', winning the Primera División title and Rivaldo became the fourth Barça player to be awarded European Footballer of the Year. Despite this domestic success, the failure to emulate Real Madrid in the Champions League led to van Gaal and Núñez resigning in 2000.
Exit Núñez, enter Laporta (2000–present)
The departures of Núñez and van Gaal were as nothing compared to that of Luís Figo. As well as club vice-captain, Figo had become a cult hero and was considered by Catalans to be one of their own. However, Barça fans were distraught by Figo's decision to join arch-rivals Real Madrid and during subsequent visits to the Camp Nou Figo was given an extremely hostile reception, including one occasion, when a piglet's head was thrown at him from the crowd. The next three years saw the club in decline and managers came and went, including a short second spell by Louis van Gaal. President Gaspart did not inspire confidence off the field either and in 2003, he and van Gaal resigned.
ValdésOleguerMárquezPuyol (C)GioDecoEdmílsonvan BommelRonaldinhoGiulyEto'o
2006 UEFA Champions League Final starting lineup
After the disappointment of the Gaspart era, the combination of a new young president Joan Laporta and a young new manager, former Dutch and Milan star Frank Rijkaard, saw the club bounce back. On the field, an influx of international players, including Ronaldinho, Deco, Henrik Larsson, Ludovic Giuly, Samuel Eto'o, and Rafael Márquez, combined with home grown Spanish players, such as Carles Puyol, Andrés Iniesta, Xavi Hernández and Víctor Valdés, led to the club's return to success. Barça won La Liga and the Supercopa de España in 2004–05, and stars Ronaldinho and Eto'o were voted first and third in the FIFA World Player of the Year awards.
In the 2005–06 season, Barcelona repeated their league and Supercup successes. The pinnacle of the league season arrived at Santiago Bernabéu Stadium in a 3–0 win over Real Madrid, Frank Rijkaard's second victory at the Bernabéu, making him the first Barça manager to win there twice. Ronaldinho's performance was so impressive that after his second, which was Barça's third, goal some Real Madrid fans felt compelled to applaud him. In the Champions League, Barça beat English club Arsenal 2–1 in the final. Trailing 1–0 to a 10-man Arsenal and with less than 15 minutes left they came back to win 2–1, with substitute Henrik Larsson, in his final appearance for the club, setting up goals for Samuel Eto'o and fellow substitute Juliano Belletti, for the club's first European Cup victory in 14 years.
Despite being the favourites and starting strongly, Barcelona finished the 2006–07 season without trophies. A pre-season US tour was later blamed for a string of injuries to key players, including leading scorer Eto'o and rising star Lionel Messi. There was open feuding as Eto'o publicly criticized coach Frank Rijkaard and Ronaldinho. Ronaldinho also admitted that lack of fitness affected his form. In La Liga, Barça were in first place for much of the season, but inconsistency in the New Year saw Real Madrid overtake them to become champions. Barça advanced to the semi-finals of the Copa del Rey, winning the first leg against Getafe 5–2, with a goal from Messi, bringing comparison to Diego Maradona, but then lost the second leg 4–0. They took part in the 2006 FIFA Club World Cup, but were beaten by a late goal in the final against Brazilian sides Internacional. In the Champions League, Barça were knocked out of the competition in the last 16 by eventual runners-up Liverpool on away goals.
Barcelona finished 2007–08 season third in La Liga and reached the semi-finals of the UEFA Champions League and Copa del Rey, both times losing to the eventual champions: Manchester United and Valencia, respectively. The day after a 4–1 defeat to Real Madrid, Joan Laporta announced that Barça B coach Josep Guardiola would take over Frank Rijkaard's duties after 30 June.
Sextuple winning year (2009)
In the pre-season of 2008–09, a motion of no confidence was raised against club president Joan Laporta. This motion received 60% support, just short of the 66% required to oust him, prompting eight of the directors to resign.
As well as appointing Guardiola, Laporta also made major changes to the playing staff, selling Gianluca Zambrotta, Deco, Edmílson and Ronaldinho. Nearly €90 million was spent rebuilding the squad, with Begiristain and Laporta purchasing Seydou Keita, Piqué, Martín Cáceres, Dani Alves and Hleb. Despite this, the club retained its home-grown nucleus of players, such as captain Puyol, Messi, Xavi, Víctor Valdés and Iniesta.
On 17 January 2009, Barça set the record for the most points obtained in the first half of a La Liga season (50) after winning 16, drawing two and losing just one of their first 19 league games. The club also reached the Copa del Rey final for the first time since 1998 after defeating Mallorca in the semi-finals. Six days later, on 23 January, the International organisation IFFHS ranked Barça first in their list of the greatest football clubs of the last 18 years. The All-time Club World Ranking was determined by taking into account all the results of the national championships, the national cup competitions, the club competitions of the six continental confederations and the FIFA.
For the second time that season, Barça played Real Madrid in El Clásico, this time at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium. Barça won the historic match 2–6, which amounted to the most goals ever scored in El Clásico by Barcelona and the biggest margin of victory for Barça at the Bernabéu since the 1970s, when Johan Cruyff led Barça to win 0–5. On 6 May 2009, just days after the comprehensive victory over their biggest rivals, Barcelona played against Chelsea in the second leg of the Champions League semi-finals. Following a goalless first leg, Chelsea led the second leg at Stamford Bridge 1–0 from the eighth minute, until injury time, when Andrés Iniesta scored a dramatic equaliser in the 93rd minute from the edge of the penalty area, sending Barcelona through to the final on away goals.
On 13 May, Barça beat Athletic Bilbao 4–1 at the Mestalla to win the Copa del Rey for a record 25th time. Just days later, as Real Madrid lost to Villarreal, the domestic double was confirmed for Barcelona and the club was crowned La Liga champions for the 2008–09 season.
With a largely homegrown squad in which seven players of the starting 11 were products of their youth system, Barça defeated the defending champions Manchester United 2–0 at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome on 27 May 2009, to earn their third UEFA Champions League title and achieve the treble, having already won the La Liga and Copa del Rey in that season. This was the first time a Spanish team ever completed the treble.
After signing Zlatan Ibrahimović for a club record fee of €69 million, Barça went on to win the 2009 Supercopa de España against Athletic Bilbao (5–1 on aggregate) and the 2009 UEFA Super Cup against Shakhtar Donetsk (1–0), becoming the first European club to win both domestic and European Super Cups following a treble. In December 2009, Barça won the 2009 FIFA Club World Cup in the United Arab Emirates, thus become the first team ever to accomplish the sextuple.
Rivalries
There is often a fierce rivalry between the two strongest teams in a national league, and this is particularly the case in La Liga, where the game between Barça and Real Madrid is known as El Clásico. From the start, the clubs were seen as representatives of two rival regions in Spain: Catalonia and Castile, as well as of the two cities themselves. The rivalry projects what many regard as the political and other tensions felt between Catalans and the Castilians.
During the dictatorships of Primo de Rivera and (especially) of Francisco Franco (1939–1975), all regional cultures were openly suppressed, for instance all of the languages spoken in Spanish territory, except Spanish (Castilian) itself, were officially banned. Symbolising the Catalan people's desire for freedom, Barça became 'more than a club' (Més que un Club) for the Catalans. According to Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, the best way for the Catalans' to demonstrate their identity was by joining Barça. It was less risky than joining a clandestine anti-Franco movement and allowed them to express their dissidence.
On the contrary, Real Madrid was widely seen as the embodiment of the sovereign oppressive centralism and the fascist regime at management level and beyond (Santiago Bernabeu, the former club president for whom the Merengues' stadium is named, fought with the los nacionales). However, during the Spanish Civil War itself, members of both clubs like Josep Sunyol and Rafael Sánchez Guerra suffered at the hands of Franco supporters.
During the 1950s, the rivalry was exacerbated further when the clubs disputed the signing of Alfredo di Stéfano, who finally played for Real Madrid and was key in the subsequent success achieved by the club. The 1960s saw the rivalry reach the European stage when they met twice at the knock-out stages of the European Cup.
El Derbi Barceloní
Barça's local rival has always been Espanyol. Blanc-i-blaus, being one of the clubs granted royal patronage, were founded exclusively by Spanish football fans, unlike the multinational nature of Barça's primary board. The founding message of the club was clearly anti-Barcelona, as they disapprovingly saw FC Barcelona as a team of foreigners. Their original ground was in the well-off district of Sarrià.
Traditionally, especially during the Franco regime, Espanyol was seen by the vast majority of Barcelona's citizens as a club which cultivated a kind of compliance to the central authority, in stark contrast to Barça's revolutionary spirit. In 1918 Espanyol started a counter-petition against autonomy, which at that time had become a pertinent issue. Later on, an Espanyol supporter group would join the Falangists in the Spanish civil war, siding with the fascists. Despite these differences in ideology, the derbi has always been more relevant to Espanyol supporters than Barcelona ones due to the difference in objectives. In recent years, the rivalry has become less political, as Espanyol translated its official name and anthem from Spanish to Catalan.[
Though it is the most played local derby in the history of La Liga, it is also the least balanced of them all, with Barcelona being overwhelmingly dominating. In the league table, Espanyol have only managed to end above Barça on three occasions in almost 70 years and the only all-Catalan Copa del Rey Final in 1957 was won by Barça. Espanyol has, however, the consolation of achieving the largest margin win with a 6–0 in 1951. Espanyol achieved a shock 2–1 win against Barça during the 2008–09 season, becoming the first team to defeat Barcelona at Camp Nou in their treble-winning season.
Records
For more details on this topic, see List of FC Barcelona records and statistics.
Migueli presently holds both records for number of total and Liga appearances for Barcelona with a total of 548 games played in total, and 391 in La Liga. This record could be broken by the player with most international caps, Xavi, who as of May 9, 2010 has played 352 league games and 527 games in all competitions.
FC Barcelona's all-time highest goalscorer in all competitions (incl. friendlies) is Paulino Alcántara with 357 goals. The record league scorer is Cesár Rodriguez, who scored 195 goals in La Liga between 1942 and 1955, a record not likely to be broken anytime soon, as the current leading league scorer Lionel Messi has scored 88 times in La Liga. Only three people has managed to score over 100 league goals at Barcelona: Cesár Rodriguez (195), Ladislao Kubala (131) and recently departed Samuel Eto'o (108).
On 2 February 2009, Barcelona reached a total of 5,000 La Liga goals. The goal was converted by Lionel Messi in a game against Racing Santander, which Barça won 2–1. Later that year, on 18 December 2009, Barcelona beat Estudiantes 2–1 to win their sixth title in a year and became the first ever football team to complete the sextuple. Of other title records Barcelona holds the record for most Copa del Rey titles (25) and a joint record with Real Madrid for the most Spanish Supercups with 8 titles.
Barcelona's highest home attendance is 120,000 for a European Cup quarter-final against Juventus on 3 March 1986. The modernisation of Camp Nou during the 1990s and the introduction of all-seater stands mean that the record will not be broken for the foreseeable future as the current legal capacity of Camp Nou is 98,772.
Sponsorship
Since its founding, Barcelona has never worn corporate advertisements on their shirt. On 14 July 2006, the club announced a five year agreement with UNICEF, which includes having the UNICEF logo on their shirts. The agreement has the club donate €1.5 million per year to UNICEF (0.7 percent of its ordinary income, equal to the UN International Aid Target, cf. ODA) via the FC Barcelona Foundation.
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