FC Barcelona

Also written as Barcelona.

The club

Futbol Club Barcelona were founded on 29 November 1899 by Hans Gamper and a group of fellow enthusiasts in the Catalan capital. The club is owned by its supporters, the socis, rather than by any private investor, and the current president is Joan Laporta. Barcelona traditionally play in dark shades of blue and garnet stripes, hence the nickname Blaugrana. The club is valued at around 5.6 billion dollars with annual revenue of just over 800 million euros.

They are not to be confused with Barcelona Sporting Club of Guayaquil, Ecuador, established on 1 May 1925 by the Spanish immigrant Eutimio Pérez, who named that club after his home city; the Ecuadorian side plays in the Ecuadorian Serie A at the Estadio Monumental Banco Pichincha, wears a similar crest, and is an entirely separate club. Nor are they FC Barcelona Atlètic, commonly Barça B, the club's own reserve team, which plays in Segunda Federación Group 2, the fourth tier, at the 6,000-seat Estadi Johan Cruyff, and which as a Spanish reserve side must play at least one level below the first team and is not eligible for the Copa del Rey.

The ground is the Camp Nou, completed in 1957 after earlier homes including Les Corts, with an expected capacity of 105,000 once its renovation is complete. Barcelona spent two seasons away during the rebuild, playing at the Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys on Montjuïc and at the Estadi Johan Cruyff, and returned to the Camp Nou on 22 November 2025 with a 4-0 win over Athletic Bilbao. Whether the full 105,000 capacity is yet open was not established from the sources read here.

The head coach is the German Hansi Flick, appointed on 29 May 2024 on an initial contract to 30 June 2026, extended to 2027 on 21 May 2025 and again to 2028 after the 2025-26 season.

Recent seasons

Barcelona finished second in La Liga in 2021-22 with 73 points, then won the title in 2022-23 with 88. In 2023-24 they were second again on 85 points. In 2024-25, Flick's first season, they won a domestic treble of La Liga with 88 points, the Copa del Rey and the Supercopa de España, and won all four Clásicos against Real Madrid in a single season, the first time in the modern era. In 2025-26 they retained the title with 94 points from 31 wins, one draw and six defeats, 95 goals scored and 36 conceded, winning all nineteen home league matches — the first Spanish team in forty years to complete a clean sweep at home and the first to do it under the 38-game format — and clinching the 29th title with three matches to spare after a 2-0 win over Real Madrid at the Camp Nou on 10 May 2026. Ferran Torres and Lamine Yamal led the league scoring for the club with sixteen apiece, Robert Lewandowski added fourteen, and Yamal's 24 in all competitions made him the club's top scorer overall.

Honours and landmarks

Twenty-nine La Liga titles, 32 Copas del Rey, sixteen Supercopas de España and two Copas de la Liga at home. Abroad, five European Cups and Champions Leagues in 1992, 2006, 2009, 2011 and 2015, a record four Cup Winners' Cups in 1979, 1982, 1989 and 1997, a record three Inter-Cities Fairs Cups, five UEFA Super Cups, two Latin Cups and three FIFA Club World Cups. In 2009 Barcelona won the continental treble of La Liga, Copa del Rey and Champions League, and in 2015 became the first European club in history to achieve the continental treble twice. Lionel Messi is the all-time leading scorer with 672 goals and the record appearance-maker with 778 matches in all competitions between 2004 and 2021, and holds the Clásico scoring record with 26.

Notable scorelines

The great modern extremes both came in the Champions League. On 8 March 2017 Barcelona beat Paris Saint-Germain 6-1 at the Camp Nou in the round of sixteen second leg, having lost the first leg 4-0, going through 6-5 on aggregate — La Remontada, the largest comeback in Champions League history, sealed by Sergi Roberto in the 95th minute after Neymar had scored twice in stoppage time; the celebrations registered as a micro earthquake on local seismographs. On 14 August 2020 they lost 8-2 to Bayern Munich in a single-leg quarter-final at the Estádio da Luz in Lisbon, the pandemic-format tie, their first eight-goal concession since an 8-0 defeat to Sevilla in 1946 and their heaviest European defeat. Domestically, László Kubala scored seven goals in one match against Sporting Gijón in 1951-52, still a La Liga record, and in 2025-26 Barcelona beat Valencia 6-0 at home and Newcastle United 7-2 in the Champions League round of sixteen second leg. The club's all-time record victory and record defeat in all competitions were not established from the sources read here.

European record

Barcelona reached their first European Cup final in 1960-61, losing to Benfica, and did not win the competition until 1992, beating Sampdoria at Wembley; further wins followed in 2006, 2009, 2011 and 2015. Their overall European record through April 2026 is 364 wins, 141 draws and 139 defeats from 644 matches, a 56.52 per cent win rate, and they stand second in the ranking of Europe's most successful clubs with 22 international trophies. Xavi Hernández holds the club record for European appearances with 173 and Lionel Messi is the leading European scorer with 128 goals.

Recently: a Champions League group-stage exit in 2021-22 followed by a Europa League knockout play-off elimination, a group-stage exit in 2022-23 with the same consolation, a quarter-final in 2023-24, a semi-final in 2024-25, and in 2025-26 a quarter-final exit to Atlético Madrid, beaten 3-2 on aggregate after losing the home leg 2-0, despite the 7-2 demolition of Newcastle United in the round of sixteen.

Quotes

After the 8-2 defeat to Bayern Munich in Lisbon, Gerard Piqué said the club "needed structural changes on all levels", and president Josep Maria Bartomeu called the result a "disaster". Lionel Messi later said of the club's European collapses: "You have to compete for it and let us not fall apart in Rome, Liverpool and Lisbon."

Right now (2026-27)

Hansi Flick remains head coach, under contract to 2028, and this is the first full season back at the Camp Nou after two years away. The summer was busy: Rodri arrived from Manchester City for 60 million euros plus 15 million in variables, Anthony Gordon from Newcastle United for 70 million plus ten, Karim Adeyemi from Borussia Dortmund, Gabriel Jesus from Arsenal and João Cancelo on a free from Al Hilal for a third spell, while Robert Lewandowski left on an expired contract for Chicago Fire, Ferran Torres joined Paris Saint-Germain for 48.5 million euros and Ronald Araújo went to Liverpool on loan with a 55 million euro purchase option.

The league start has been perfect: 5-0 at home to Elche on 23 August 2026 with goals including Karim Adeyemi, Raphinha and Fermín López, 2-0 over Athletic Bilbao on 27 August with Rodri making his debut from the bench, 5-2 over Rayo Vallecano on 31 August with two each for Raphinha and Lamine Yamal, and 5-0 over Valencia on 6 September with two more for Yamal. Four wins from four, seventeen scored and two conceded, top of La Liga. The Champions League league phase begins on 9 September 2026; the Copa del Rey round of 32 comes in December and the Supercopa de España semi-finals in February 2027. Barcelona's league-phase opponents and the identity of the current club captain were not established from the sources read here.

Sources

Researched and written for not4quarters. Where a fact could not be established from the sources read, this page says so rather than guessing.