For a great one-stop shop for all things Barcelona, have a look at this information helpfully produced by Arsenal for their 2010 quarter final tie. For a more specific breakdown, follow the links to the left for our take on the city and the club.
As with all of our guides, if there is anything missing from the following pages that you need to know then feel free to drop us an email and we'll do our best to find it out for you.
Brief Ground Location
The Nou Camp stadium is located about 3km north-west of the Ramblas and approximately 5km from the city centre.
Brief Club History
On October 22nd 1899 Joan Gamper placed an advert in a newspaper declaring his interests in forming a football club. A positive response resulted in a meeting on November 29th. As a result Football Club Barcalona was formed. FC Barcelona quickly emerged as one of the leading clubs in Spain. They won their first trophy when they won the “Copa Macaya” in 1901.
On September 7th 2006, an agreement between FC Barcelona and UNICEF was reached whereby the club would donate 0.7% of its total yearly revenue to the organisation for the next five years. As part of the agreement, FC Barcelona will wear the UNICEF logo on the front of their shirts, which will be the first time in the club’s history that a logo of another organisation, other than shirt manufacturers, will be present.
Barça had, until 2010, refused to allow commercial sponsorship logos on their football shirts. Although since 2005 they have worn the TV3 logo of Televisiò de Catalunya on the left arm. These new look shirts were first worn in the Champions League game against Levski Sofia on Tuesday 12th September 2006, and in 2010 signed a deal with the Qatar Foundation which was one of the biggest shirt sponsorship deals in history.
In total, Barcelona, or just Barca, have appeared in six European Champion Clubs’ Cup finals, winning the 1992 competition against UC Sampdoria, in 2006 with a win against Arsenal FC and in 2009 beating Manchester United. They lost on penalties to FC Steaua Bucuresti in the 1986 season, 3-2 to SL Benfica in 1961 and 4-0 to AC Milan in 1994.
Fans & Foes
The supporters of FC Barca are called cules. Roughly translated from Catalan it means something like “arses”. The name refers to the fans seated in the highest tiers of the stadium – in previous times, people going past the stadium from the outside could only see their bottoms what is why Barca fans have been called Culers ever since.
Barca have a massive fanbase anyway, consisting of 1,352 FC Barcelona Official Fan Clubs all over the world and more than 152,000 official club members of FC Barcelona in Spain. One of the most notorious groups of supporters at FC Barcelona are the Boixos Nois which use a bulldog in their logo. Originally founded in the 1980s as a rather left-wing group, they are now dominated by rather right-wing and nationalist attitudes.
The biggest rival of Barca are Real Madrid, the derby match between the two clubs is known as El Clásico. The rivalry between the two clubs basically reflects the political and cultural tensions that there are between many Catalans and Castilians, which represent two big ethnic groups in Spain.
Club Honours
UEFA Champions League (2): 1992, 2006
UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup (4): 1979, 1982, 1989, 1997
Inter-Cities Fairs Cup (predecessor of UEFA Cup) (3): 1958, 1960, 1966
European Super Cup (2): 1992, 1997
And a multitude of domestic cups such as:
Liga Champions (18) – last time in 2006
Copa del Rey Champions (24 – record) – last time in 1998
