FC Barcelona
La Masia's return to the first team turned a financial crisis into the most watchable young side in Europe.
The club
Founded on 29 November 1899 by Swiss émigré Joan Gamper, who placed a newspaper advert looking for players. Barcelona hold the record for Copa del Rey wins with 32 and have won five European Cups. Like Real Madrid and Athletic, the club is owned by its members, who have elected the president by ballot since 1978. La Masia remains its defining institution.
Things worth knowing
- Gamper saved the club in 1908 by taking over himself, telling a meeting: “Barcelona cannot die and must not die.” He served as president five times.
- In 2010 the entire Ballon d'Or podium, Messi, Iniesta and Xavi, was made up of La Masia graduates.
- The first Spanish club to win a continental treble (2009), and the first European club to do it twice (2015).
- At Paulino Alcántara's 1927 testimonial, the match ball was dropped onto the pitch from an aeroplane.
Coverage
All analysis →
Players & staff we cover
All profiles →Multiple Ballon d'Or Féminin winner and the best midfielder in the women's game.
Two-time Ballon d'Or winner and the defining figure of Spanish women's football.
The pressing engine of the Barcelona midfield and its most aggressive ball-winner.
The best teenage footballer since Messi, and the axis of both Barcelona's and Spain's attack.
The academy graduate who solved Barcelona's single pivot problem for free.
The finest positional midfielder in the world when fit, the qualifier is the whole story.
A former world-class junior athlete turned World Cup-winning forward.