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 Sole on November 29. Eleven players attended: Gualteri Wild, Lluís d'Ossó, Bartomeu Terradas, Otto Kunzle, Otto Maier, Enric Ducal, Pere Cabot, Josep Llobet, John Parsons, and William Parsons. As a result Foot-Ball Club Barcelona was born. Several other Spanish football clubs, most notably Real Madrid and Athletic Bilbao, also had British founders, and as a result they initially adopted English-style names.
FC Barcelona quickly emerged as one of the leading clubs of both Catalonia and Spain as they competed in both the Campionat de Catalunya and the Copa del Rey. In 1901 they won their first trophy when they won the Copa Macaya and in 1902 they also played in the first Copa del Rey final, losing 2-1 to Club Vizcaya.

[edit] With Gamper's seal (1908-1923)
In 1908 Joan Gamper became club president for the first time. Gamper took over the presidency as the club was on the verge of folding. The club had not won anything since the Campionat de Catalunya of 1905 and its finances suffered as a result. 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. On March 14 1909, it moved into the Carrer Industria, a stadium with a capacity of 6,000. Gamper also 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 Les Corts, which inaugurated in the same year. This stadium had an initial capacity of 20,000, later expanded to an impressive 60,000.
Gamper also recruited Paulino Alcántara, the club's all time top-scorer with 356 goals, and in 1917 appointed Jack Greenwell as manager. This saw the club's fortunes begin to improve on the field. During the Gamper era FC Barcelona won eleven Campionat de Catalunya, six Copa del Rey and four Coupe de Pyrenées and enjoyed its first golden age. As well as Alcántara the Barça team under Greenwall also included Sagibarbá, Ricardo Zamora, Josep Samitier, Félix Sesúmaga and Franz Platko.

[edit] Rivera, República and Civil war (1923-1939)
In the midst of the glorious 20's, Barca suffered of non-sporting conflicts which were to mark the following decade. On 14th June 1925, during Primo de Rivera's dictatorship, the crowd at a game in homage to the Orfeo Catalan jeered the Royal March and as a reprisal the ground closed for six months, later reduced to three, and forced Gamper to give up the presidency of the club. The club's founder, after a period of depression brought on by personal and money problems comitted suicide on July 30 1930.
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. Barca faced a crisis on three fronts: financial, social, with the number of members dropping constantly, and sporting, where although the team won the Catalan Championship in 1929-30, 1930-31, 1931-32, 1934-34, 1935-36 and 1937-38, success at Spanish level evaded them.
A month after the civil war began, Barça's left-wing president Josep Suñol i Garriga (a.k.a. Josep Sunyol) was murdered by Franco's soldiers near to Guadalajara. In 1937, the squad was on a tour in Mexico and USA in which the team was received as an ambassador of the fighting Second Spanish Republic. Moreover, it proved the financial saving of the club, also resulted in half the team seeking exile in Mexico and France. On 16th March 1938 the fascists dropped a bomb on the club's social club and caused serious 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, was facing a number of serious problems.

[edit] C. de F. Barcelona (1939-1974)

Club shield during the Franco dictatorship
After the Spanish Civil War, the Catalan language and flag were 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. During the Franco era one of the few places that Catalan could be spoken freely was within the club's stadium.
In 1943, at Les Corts, for the first leg of the semi-finals of the Copa del Rey against Real Madrid, the result was a 3-0 win for Barça. Before the second leg, Barcelona's players were threatened to a terrifying changing room visit from Franco's director of state security. He ominously 'reminded' them that they were only playing due to the 'generosity of the regime'. Madrid side won that game 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 first time since 1929. They added two more titles in 1948 and 1949. In 1949 they also won the first Copa Latina. 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 Generalisimo, the Copa Latina and the Copa Eva Duarte in 1952. In 1953 they helped the club win La Liga and the Copa del Generalisimo again. The club also won the Copa del Generalisimo in 1957 and the Fairs Cup in 1958.
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/Fairs Cup double in 1960. In 1961 they became the first club to beat Real Madrid in a European Cup game, thus ending their monopoly of the competition.
The 1960s were less successful for the club, with Real Madrid and Atlético Madrid monopolising La Liga. The completion of the Camp Nou, finished in 1957, meant the club had little money to spend on new players. However the decade also saw the emergence of Josep Fusté and Carles Rexach and the club winning the Copa del Generalisimo in 1963 and the Fairs Cup in 1966. Barça restored some pride by beating Real Madrid 1-0 in the 1968 Copa del Generalisimo final at the Bernabéu. The club changed its official name back to Futbol Club Barcelona in 1974.[2]

[edit] Cruijff (1974-1978)
The 1973/74 season saw the arrival of a new Barça legend – Johan Cruijff. Already an established player with Ajax, Cruijff 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 Franco. He further endeared himself when he chose a Catalan name, Jordi, for his son. He helped the club win La Liga for the first time since 1960, along the way defeating Real Madrid 5-0 at the Bernabéu. He was also crowned European Footballer of the Year twice in a row while at club.
Real Madrid vs. Barcelona 0-5, 1974

[edit] Núñez in presidency (1978-2000)

[edit] The stability years (1978-1988)
Josep Lluís Núñez was elected president of FC Barcelona in 1978. His main objectives were to establish Barça as a world-class sports club and to give the club financial stability.
In 1979 and 1982 the club won two of four European Cup Winners' Cups won in the Núñez era. In 1982 Diego Maradona was signed for a world record fee from Boca Juniors. However his time with Barça was short-lived and unsuccessful 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.
After the 1986 World Cup, English top scorer Gary Lineker was signed along with goalkeeper Andoni Zubizarreta but the team could not achieve success while Schuster was excluded from the team. Terry Venables was subsequently fired at the beginning of the 1987/88 season and replaced with Luis Aragones. That season finished with a rebellion of the players against president Núñez known as the Motin del Hesperia and the 1-0 victory at the Copa del Rey final against Real Sociedad.

[edit] The Dream Team (1988-1996)
In 1988 Johan Cruijff returned to the club as manager, assembling the so-called Dream Team, named after the US basketball team that played at the 1992 Summer Olympics hosted by Barcelona. He introduced players like Josep Guardiola, José Mari Bakero, Txiki Beguiristáin, Jon Andoni Goikoetxea, Ronald Koeman, Michael Laudrup, Romário and Hristo Stoichkov. This team won La Liga four times between 1991 and 1994 and beat Sampdoria in both the 1989 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup final and the 1992 European Cup final at Wembley. They also won a Copa del Rey in 1990, the European Super Cup in 1992 and three Supercopa de España. With 11 trophies, Cruijff has been the club's most successful manager to date. He is also the club's longest serving manager. However, in his final two seasons, he failed to win any trophies and fell out with president Núñez, resulting in Cruijff's departure.

[edit] Towards the centenary (1996-2000)
Cruijff was briefly replaced by Bobby Robson who took charge of the club for a single season in 1996/97. He is quoted as saying, "Catalonia is a country and FC Barcelona is their army". He recruited Ronaldo from his previous club, PSV Eindhoven 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 and he left for Inter Milan. However, new heroes such as Luís Figo, Giovanni Silva De Oliveira, Luis Enrique Martínez and Rivaldo emerged and the team won a Copa del Rey/La Liga double in 1998. In 1999 the club celebrates its 'centenari' winning the La Liga 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 UEFA Champions League led to van Gaal and Núñez resigning in 2000.

[edit] Gaspart's decline period (2000-2003)
The departures of Nuñez and Van Gaal were 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. So the 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 pig'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. Gaspart did not inspire confidence off the field either and in 2003 he and Van Gaal resigned.

[edit] The current era (2003-present)

FC Barcelona 2005 team photograph
After the disappointment of the Gaspart era, a combination of a new young president Joan Laporta and a relatively young new manager Frank Rijkaard saw the club bounce back. It was during this time, that Barça had gotten a tagline. It read Blaugrana Al Vent, which in Catalan, the official language of Barcelona, means The Red-Blue, Flowing In The Wind. But aside from that, on the field, an influx of talented players, such as Ronaldinho, Deco, Ludovic Giuly, and Samuel Eto'o, and experienced professionals, such as Rafael Márquez and Giovanni van Bronckhorst combined with a nucleus of home grown players, Carles Puyol, Andrés Iniesta, Xavi, and Víctor Valdés saw the club return to success.
In the 2004/05 season, Barça had a 3-0 win over fierce rivals Real Madrid at the Camp Nou and another impressive 2-0 win vs Valencia CF at the fearsome Mestalla. In the UEFA Champions League 2004-05 Barça were eliminated by Chelsea FC 5-4 on aggregate. The first leg started a rivalry between the two clubs after Chelsea manager José Mourinho said that he had seen referee Anders Frisk invite Barça manager Frank Rijkaard into his room at half-time. As a result of these claims, Frisk announced his immediate retirement, citing threats made to his family. The second leg produced one of the best ever goals in the UEFA Champions League by Ronaldinho. Barça won La Liga, while Ronaldinho and Eto'o were first and third in the FIFA World Player of the Year awards.

[edit] 2005-06
The 2005-06 season has been the pinnacle of the Laporta reign so far. In November 2005 Barça beat Real Madrid 3-0 at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium in a match where Ronaldinho was so impressive that after his second, and Barça's third goal the Real Madrid fans felt compelled to applaud him. This match also gave Barça manager Frank Rijkaard his second victory at the stadium of Real Madrid, becoming the first Barça manager to do so. In this season, Barça also beat Chelsea FC 2-1 at Stamford Bridge in a match which saw the global introduction of Lionel Messi and then in the semi-final of the competition Barça beat A.C. Milan 1-0 on aggregate, at the San Siro through a Ludovic Giuly goal after a pass from Ronaldinho. The return leg in Barcelona, Spain finished 0-0.
As well as winning La Liga with ease, on May 17, 2006 they also won the UEFA Champions League. Trailing 1-0 to Arsenal with less than 15 minutes left, they won 2-1 after the substitute Henrik Larsson set-up two late goals, one for Samuel Eto'o and the other for Juliano Belletti. This victory sparked scenes of jubilation from Barcelona fans with ecstatic culérs celebrating in the obvious scene of La Rambla as well as members of Barça fan clubs celebrating in the Plaza de Cibeles in Madrid and all over the world. [1]
In 2005 and 2006 Barça won the Supercopa de España with victories over Real Betis and Catalan rivals Espanyol respectively.

[edit] 2006-07
For the 2006/07 season, FC Barcelona was reinforced with the arrival of Eidur Gudjohnsen, Gianluca Zambrotta, Lilian Thuram, and the return of Javier Saviola [2].
They took part in the FIFA Club World Cup 2006, making it to the final, only to be beaten by a late goal against Internacional.
Despite being the favorites and starting strongly, Barcelona finished the 2006-07 season trophyless. A pre-season US tour was later blamed for a string of injuries to key players, including leading scorer Eto'o and rising star 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.[3]
In La Liga, Barça was in first place for much of the season while arch-rivals Real Madrid were six points behind and in fourth. However Barça began playing inconsistently after January, while Madrid's form improved in that same period. On May 12, 2007, Real Madrid took the league lead for the first time all season by defeating Espanyol 4-3, coming back from 1-3 first half deficit. The Sunday after Madrid won their epic battle with Espanyol, Barca dropped points with a 1-1 draw to struggling Real Betis. By virtue of their superior head to head record, Madrid sat at the top of La Liga with both teams having four league games left.[4] On the penultimate day of the season, Barca failed to overcome city-rivals Espanyol in the Catalonia derby, drawing 2-2 thanks in part to a one-game suspension to Ronaldinho. In the final La Liga match, Barca thrashed Gimnastic 5-1, but Madrid came back from a 0-1 deficit to beat Mallorca 3-1 and clinch the title on head-to-head superiority.
Barça was unable to retain the Champions League. Drawn with Werder Bremen and arch-rivals Chelsea, Barca lost 1-0 to Chelsea despite the latter being forced to field their third-string keeper Henrique Hilário, and the Catalans only advanced after beating Bremen 2-0 in the last group game. Then they were knocked out of the competition in the last 16 by eventual runners-up Liverpool F.C., losing 2-1 at Nou Camp after having been up 1-0; they were then held to 1-0 at Anfield and were eliminated on away goals.
Barça advanced to the semi-finals of the Copa del Rey, winning the first leg 5-2, but then surprisingly losing the second leg 4-0 to lowly Getafe to go out 6-5 on aggregate.
Highlights of the 2006/07 season for Barcelona have included Lionel Messi's hat-trick vs Real Madrid in the extraordinary 3-3 draw at the Camp Nou and his 'golazo' vs Getafe. In addition to this, Barça managed to stun the rest of La Liga with a 6-0 win over Atlético Madrid, a team who FC Barcelona have found extremely difficult to beat in recent seasons. Barca finished the season with a goal difference of +45 (78 goals in 38 matches and conceded just 33), compared with +25 for Real Madrid and +29 for Sevilla. Barça has improved or equalled its record compared with the last two title winning seasons. The goal difference for 2004-05 season was +44 (73 scored and 29 conceded) and for the 2005-06 season +45 (80 scored and 35 conceded). [5]

[edit] Pre 2007-08 Season

This article documents a current event.Information may change rapidly as the event progresses.
Forwards Javier Saviola, and Santiago Ezquerro have confirmed that they are departing the club.[6]
This season, Barcelona has signed deals with two Scottish Premier League clubs Dundee United and Heart of Midlothian to play pre-season friendlies at Tannadice Park, home of Dundee United, and Hearts are due to play at Murrayfield Stadium. On August 15, Barcelona will face Bayern Munich in the Mehmet Scholl testimonial / Franz Beckenbauer Cup.
On 25 June, it was announced Barcelona had signed Thierry Henry from Arsenal F.C. for £16.1 million (€24 million).[7]
On 26 June, Barça announced they signed Yaya Touré from AS Monaco for €12 million.
On 29 June, Barça officially confirmed Eric Abidal had signed a four-year contract with Barcelona for a fee of €14 million.[3][4] This makes it three signings in a week.

[edit] Rivalries

[edit] El clásico
For more details on this topic, see El Clásico
There is often a fierce rivalry between the two strongest teams in a national league and this is particularly the case in La Liga, between FC Barcelona and Real Madrid, this game is also know 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 cultural tensions felt between Catalans and the Castilleans.
During the dictatorships of Primo de Rivera and (especially) of Francisco Franco, all regional identities were openly suppressed (e.g. the peripheral languages were officially banned). So FC Barcelona become more than a club (més que un club) for Catalonia and one of its greatest ambassadors as a defencer of freedom. On the contrary, for most of the Catalans and many other Spaniards, Real Madrid was representing the sovereign centralism.
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 significantly when the clubs disputed the signing of Alfredo Di Stefano, 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 semi-final stage of the European Cup.
As nowadays FC Barcelona and Real Madrid are the two biggest and most successful clubs in Spain, the rivalry is renewed on an almost annual basis with both teams often challenging each other for the league championship. The current Clasico was played in the Camp Nou and ended with a 3-3 draw, and with Lionel Messi scoring his first hat-trick.

El derbi barcelonés
Reial Club Deportiu Espanyol, the 'royalist' team of the city, were founded exclusively by Spanish fans of the game, on the contrary to the multinational nature of FC Barcelona's original board. The club's first home was in the well-off district of Sarrià and was formerly known with the Spanish spelling of its name, Real Club Deportivo Español.
Traditionally, especially in the years following the Spanish Civil War, Espanyol were seen as a club who cultivated a kind of compliance to the central authority, unlike FC Barcelona, who for the majority of Catalans, symbolised the ideal of autonomy. However, the Blanquiazules in 1995 attempted to have a go at getting their own part in Catalanism by 'catalanizing' their name in a move that generally did not earn them much respect at the Camp Nou.
See also: Chelsea F.C. and FC Barcelona football rivalry

Sponsorship
FC Barcelona attitude to sponsorship is unique. Selectively without a commercial message in its shirts, on 14 July 2006 the club announced a five year agreement with UNICEF, which includes having the UNICEF logo on their shirts. The agreement will see FC Barcelona donating US$1.9 million per year to UNICEF (0.7 per cent of its ordinary income) to the FC Barcelona Foundation, and rejecting significant money offers to be the first shirt sponsor of the football team.
The club has done this in order to set up international cooperation programmes for development, supports the UN Millennium Development Goals and has made a commitment to Unicef’s humanitarian aid programs through the donation of one and a half million euros for the next five years. To those who are not familiar with Barça's meaning, even they could see that this deal would prove to them that Barça is 'Més que un club'.
Companies that FC Barcelona currently has sponsorship deals with include [5]:
Nike - Official sponsors
Coca-Cola - Official sponsors
TV3 (Catalonia) - Official sponsors
Audi - Official sponsors
Telefonica - Official sponsors
Estrella Damm - Official sponsors
La Caixa - Official sponsors
bwin - Official Betting Partner
MediaPro - Official provider

Honours

Celebrating on the streets of Barcelona
Main article: FC Barcelona in Europe
La Liga Champions: 18
1929, 1945, 1948, 1949, 1952, 1953, 1959, 1960, 1974, 1985, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1998, 1999, 2005, 2006
Copa del Rey: 24 (record)
1910, 1912, 1913, 1920, 1922, 1925, 1926, 1928, 1942, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1957, 1959, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1978, 1981, 1983, 1988, 1990, 1997, 1998
Supercopa de España: 7
1983, 1991, 1992, 1994, 1996, 2005, 2006
UEFA Champions League: 2
1992, 2006
UEFA Cup Winners' Cup: 4 (record)
1979, 1982, 1989, 1997
Inter-Cities Fairs Cup/UEFA Cup: 3
1958, 1960, 1966
Inter-Cities Fairs Cup Trophy Play-Off: 1
1971
European Super Cup: 2
1992, 1997
Copa Latina: 2
1949, 1952
Copa de Oro Argentina/Copa Eva Duarte
1945, 1949, 1952, 1953
Copa Macaya/Catalan Champions: 22
1902, 1905, 1909, 1910, 1911, 1913, 1916, 1919, 1920, 1921, 1922, 1924, 1925, 1926, 1927, 1928, 1930, 1931, 1932, 1935, 1936, 1938
Joan Gamper Trophy: 31
1966,1967,1968,1969,1971,1973,1974,1975,1976,1977,1979,1980,1983,1984,1985,1986,1988,1990, 1991,1992,1995,1996,1997,1998,1999,2000,2001,2002,2003,2004,2006
Copa Martini Rossi: 2
1952, 1953
Coupe de Pyrenées: 4
1910, 1911, 1912, 1913
Mediterranean League: 1
1937
Copa de la Liga: 2
1982, 1986
Copa Barcelona: 1
1903
Lliga Catalana: 1
1937-38
Copa Catalunya: 6
1991, 1993, 2000, 2004, 2005, 2007
Little World Cup: 1
1957
Mandela Cup:1
2007