Formed: 1899
Nicknames: Azulgrana (Blue and Reds, Spanish), Blaugrana (Blue and Reds, Catalan)

UEFA club competition honours (runners-up in brackets)
• European Champion Clubs' Cup: 1992, 2006, 2009, 2011; (1961), (1986), (1994)
• UEFA Cup Winners' Cup: 1979, 1982, 1989, 1997; (1969), (1991)
• UEFA Super Cup: 1992, 1997, 2009; (1979), (1982), (1989), (2006)

Domestic honours (most recent triumph in brackets)
• League title: 21 (2011)
• Spanish Cup: 25 (2009)

History
• Swiss businessman Hans Gamper founded FC Barcelona after placing an advert in a local sports magazine following his arrival in the city. Several football enthusiasts responded to Gamper's notice looking for players and the club held its first official meeting on 29 November 1899. Barça lost their first game 1-0 to a team of English expatriates.

• The 1950s brought a surge in popularity – not to mention Liga titles Nos5, 6 and 7 – thanks to the likes of Ladislau Kubala, Estanislao Basora and César Rodríguez. In September 1957 Barça moved to what is now known as the Camp Nou but it was the arrival of Johan Cruyff in 1973 that heralded a new beginning for the club. Along with star turns Carles Rexach, Juan Manuel Asensi and Hugo Sotil, Cruyff immediately won the Liga title.

• Johan Neeskens and Hans Krankl were influential as the team defeated Fortuna Düsseldorf 1895 4-3 in the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup final, Barça winning the trophy again three years later. Defeat by FC Steaua Bucureşti on penalties in the 1986 European Champion Clubs' Cup final eventually brought a return of Cruyff, this time as coach, and the Dutchman built a side that would gain fame as the 'Dream Team'.

• Barcelona won a third UEFA Cup Winners' Cup title in 1989, consecutive Liga championships between 1991 and 1994, and, in 1992, Ronald Koeman's extra-time strike secured European Cup final victory against UC Sampdoria. Sir Bobby Robson led Barça to a record-breaking fourth UEFA Cup Winners' Cup win in 1997 though a lull followed until the arrival of club president Joan Laporta in 2003.

• Frank Rijkaard led the side to back-to-back Liga titles and goals from Samuel Eto'o and Juliano Belletti earned UEFA Champions League glory over Arsenal FC in 2006. Better was yet to come, however, as Josep Guardiola guided Barcelona to an unprecedented six trophies in 2009, following that up with Liga successes in 2010 and 2011. A third European Cup in five years was won with victory against Manchester United FC at Wembley in 2011.

Club recordsMost appearances: Xavi Hernández (577)*

Most goals: César Rodríguez (235)

Record league victory: Barcelona 10-1 CG Tarragona (11 September 1949)

Record league defeat: Athletic Club 12-1 Barcelona (8 February 1931)

Early years (1899-1908)
The ad in Los DeportesOn 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.
Joan Gamper used his past to form the team. Prior to forming this club, he played for Swiss clubs like FC Basel and FC Zurich. Even with forming the colors and crest of FC Barcelona, he looked back on his past clubs. He took Basel's colors and parts for the crest to form his new club.

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.

With Gamper's seal (1908-1923)
In 1911 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.

Rivera, Republic 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 Campionat de Catalunya 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.

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 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'. 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.

HISTORY OF FC BARCELONA

On November 29, 1899, Hans Gamper founded Futbol Club Barcelona, along with eleven other enthusiasts of 'foot-ball', a game that was still largely unknown in this part of the world.

He could never have imagined the magnitude of what that initiative would eventually develop into. Over more than one hundred years of history, FC Barcelona has grown spectacularly in every area and has progressed into something much greater than a mere sports club, turning Barça’s ‘more than a club’ slogan into a reality. 

Barça has become, for millions of people all around the world, a symbol of their identity, and not just in a sporting sense, but also in terms of society, politics and culture. Throughout the most difficult of times, Barça was the standard that represented Catalonia and the Catalan people's desire for freedom, a symbolism that has continued to be closely linked to the idiosyncrasy of the Club and its members to this day. Within the context of Spain, Barça is seen as an open and democratic club. And all around the world, Barça is identified with caring causes, and most especially children through its sponsorship agreement with Unicef. 

For a whole century, FC Barcelona has passed through moments of glory and pain, periods of brilliance and other less successful ones, epic victories and humbling defeats. But all these different moments have helped define the personality of a Club that, due to its peculiar nature, is considered unique in the world. 

With over one hundred years of history, there have naturally been many different periods, both in a social and a sporting sense. In the early years (1899-1922) , from the foundation of the club to the construction of Les Corts stadium, Barça was a club that had to distinguish itself from all the other football teams in Barcelona, to the point that it would come to be identified with the city as a whole. Barça soon became the leading club in Catalonia, and also associated itself with the increasingly growing sense of Catalan national identity. 

From Les Corts to the Camp Nou (1922-1957), the club went through contrasting periods. Its membership reached 10,000 for the first time, while football developed into a mass phenomenon and turned professional, and these were the years of such legendary figures as Alcántara and Samitier. But due to material difficulties and the political troubles of the Spanish Civil War and post-war period, the club was forced to overcome several adverse circumstances, including the assassination of president Josep Sunyol in 1936, the very person who had propagated the slogan ‘sport and citizenship'. But the club survived, and a period of social and sporting recovery materialised in the form of the Camp Nou, coinciding with the arrival of the hugely influential Ladislau Kubala. 

From the construction of the Camp Nou to the 75th anniversary (1957-1974) , Barça suffered mediocre results but was consolidated as an entity, with a constantly increasing membership and the slow but steady recovery, in the face of adversity, of its identity. A very clear sensation that was manifested for the first time ever in the words ‘Barça, more than a club’ proclaimed by president Narcís de Carreras. The board presided by Agustí Montal brought a player to Barcelona who would change the history of the club, Johan Cruyff. 

From the 7th anniversary to the European Cup (1974-1992) the club saw the conversion of football clubs to democracy, the start of Josep Lluís Núñez’s long presidency, the extension of the Camp Nou on occasion of the 1982 World Cup and the Cup Winners Cup triumph in Basle (1979), a major success not just in a sporting sense but also in a social one, with an enormous and exemplary expedition of Barça supporters demonstrating to Europe the unity of the Barcelona and Catalan flags. Cruyff returned, this time as coach, and created what would come to be known as the 'Dream Team' (1990-1994), whose crowning glory was the conquest of the European Cup at Wembley (1992), thanks to Koeman’s famous goal.

 International Dominance. From Wembley to Abu Dhabi (1992-2009) was when the club’s most recent developments occurred in between its three greatest achievements, becoming champions of Europe. Josep Lluís Núñez’s long presidency came to an end, and the club displayed its finest potential during the celebrations of the club Centenary. Following on from Joan Gaspart (2000-2003), the June 2003 election brought Joan Laporta into office, and the start of new social expansion, reaching 172,938 members, and more successes on the pitch, including four league titles, the Champions League titles won in Paris and Rome and the FIFA Club World Cup.

In the season 2008-09 the arrival of Josep Guardiola as first team coach brought new energy to the club and they recorded the most successful season in their entire history winning the six titles that will be forever burned into the memories of all Barça fans. Success on the field has helped the club expand its social role and heighten its media profile. In the 2009/10 season, Guardiola’s second in charge, the Liga title was won for the second year in a row, and the twentieth on club history, setting a new record of 99 points in the process. The title was not decided until the very last day, with a game against Valladolid, and the celebrations went ahead that very same evening in the company of the fans at the Camp Nou.

The grandeur of Futbol Club Barcelona is explained, among many other factors, by its impressive honours list. Very few clubs anywhere in the world have won so many titles. The Intercontinental Cup is the only major football trophy that has never made its way into the club museum, where the club's greatest pride and joy remain the three European Cup titles won in Wembley (1992) Paris (2006), Rome (2009) and the FIFA Club World Cup in 2009. 

Apart from winning Europe’s top title,, the Club also has the honour of being the only one to have appeared in every single edition of European club competition since the tournaments were first created back in 1955. Barcelona's many achievements in Europe include being considered 'King of the Cup Winners Cup', having won that title a record four times

In addition, FC Barcelona also won three Fairs Cups (the tournament now known as the UEFA Cup) in 1958, 1960 and 1966. In 1971, Barça won that trophy outright in a match played between themselves, as the first ever winners of the competition, and Leeds United, as the last.