FC Barcelona
FC Barcelona, Spanish professional football (soccer) club located in Barcelona. FC Barcelona is renowned for its historically skillful and attractive brand of attacking football that places an emphasis on flowing, open play. The team is part of a wider sports and social club with thousands of members.
FC Barcelona was formed in 1899 by businessman Joan Gamper, who advertised for players in a local Barcelona sports magazine. The club’s first trophy was the Copa Macaya (Catalan championship) in 1902, and in 1910 “Barça” won the Copa del Rey (“King’s Cup”)—Spain’s leading national football cup competition—for the first time. In total, Barcelona has won 30 Copas del Rey, more than any other team.
La Liga, the top Spanish football league, was formed in 1929, and Barcelona captured the title in the league’s inaugural season. The club has won La Liga 26 times and has never been relegated to a lower division. Abroad, Barcelona has won the European Cup Winners’ Cup four times (1979, 1982, 1989, and 1997), the European Cup/Champions League five times (1992, 2006, 2009, 2011, and 2015), and the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) Super Cup three times (1992, 1997, and 2009). In 2008–09 it won the La Liga championship, the Copa del Rey, and the continental championship (Champions League) to become the first Spanish side to capture this “treble,” a feat it repeated in 2014–15.
Barcelona played its home matches from 1922 to 1957 at the Camp de Les Corts. After the increasingly popular club outgrew that facility, a giant new stadium, Camp Nou, was built in the western part of the city and opened in 1957. A stadium-record 120,000 fans watched the 1986 European Cup quarterfinal between Barcelona and Juventus.
Barcelona’s local adversary is RCD Espanyol, but its biggest rival in Spain is Real Madrid. Games between the two teams are referred to as El Clásico (“The Classic”) and attract major interest throughout Spain, in large part because the two sides symbolize for many the ongoing political and cultural difficulties between Catalonian (Barcelona) and Castilian (Real Madrid) Spain. In addition to a long history of signing some of the football world’s biggest names—including Johan Cruyff in the 1970s, Diego Maradona in 1980s, Luis Figo and Rivaldo in the 1990s, and Ronaldinho and Samuel Eto’o in the 2000s—Barcelona also has developed a number of its own stars, such as Xavi and Argentinian forward Lionel Messi (a football prodigy who at age 24 became the club’s all-time leading goal scorer). Many of the club’s players have contributed to the Spanish national team’s greatest successes, including capturing the 2008 and 2012 European Championships and the 2010 World Cup. In the 2010 World Cup final, for example, 7 of Spain’s 11 starters were from Barça.