Barcelona

Hans ("Joan") Gamper, a Swiss athlete and great lover of sport, who came to Barcelona in 1898, is considered the founder of FC Barcelona. Gamper wanted to create a team. He placed an advertisement in the local newspaper Los Deportes, to which many willing English, Catalans and Swiss responded. In the autumn of 1899, the volunteers announced the creation of the Football Club "Barcelona."

The team won the first Spanish Cup in 1910, then repeating the success in 1912 and 1913, the Catalans won the first Spanish Championship (1929). Barcelona are the only club in Europe to have participated in every European cup competition since 1955 (since the creation of the Champions Cup tournament).

After the failure to sign Di Stéfano, who then moved to the perpetual rival Real Madrid, club president Enric Martí Carreto was fired. The next president, Francesc Miró-Sans, directed all his efforts to the creation of a new arena. So on September 24, 1957, the large Camp Nou was opened, which at first had a capacity of 98,934 spectators.

Many outstanding players played for Barcelona in their time, notably: Johan Cruyff, Diego Maradona, Harry Lineker, Andoni Zubizarreta, Josep Guardiola, Jose Maria Baquero, Chiqui Begiristain, Gheorghe Hagi, Ronald Koeman, Michael Laudrup, Romário, Hristo Stoichkov, Ronaldo, Luis Figo, Luis Enrique, Rivaldo, Ronaldinho, Deco, Xavi Hernández, Andrés Iniesta, Neymar, Lionel Messi and others.

Barcelona are also known for their youth academy - La Masia. In fact, the Catalan word "Masia" means a large rural, brick house. FC Barcelona acquired this hut in 1953. When the Camp Nou stadium opened in 1957, the building was remodeled and expanded for use as the club's social headquarters. With the gradual expansion of the club, the building became too small for headquarters, and on October 20, 1979, La Masia was converted into a dormitory for young players from outside Barcelona. The year 2010 was the peak of La Masia's heyday — for the first time in history, three main places on the Golden Ball list at once were taken by graduates of the same academy - Lionel Messi, Xavi Hernandez and Andrés Iniesta.

On November 25, 2012, the academy was reminded of itself — the head coach of the first team, Tito Vilanova let out 11 players in the starting line-up for the match against Levante, all of them were La Masia graduates: Valdes, Montoya, Pique, Puyol, Alba, Xavi, Busquets, Fabregas, Pedro, Messi and Iniesta.