"Mes que un club"

Bon dia, bona tarde I bona nit to all the ‘CATAFANS’ out there, and welcome to this edition of the Catalan Dragons blog. I shall be exploring the football team that have provided Catalonia with enormous pride over many years, FC Barcelona. As the saying goes, ‘mes que un club’, Barcelona seldom fail to live up to this illustrious message. The city of Barcelona itself is the capital of the autonomous community of Catalonia and the second largest city in Spain. Recognised as a global city due to its finance, commerce, media and international trade it provides the perfect base for a globally successful football team.

Since it was founded as a new football team in 1899, Barca have progressed to become one of the footballing giants of the modern era, playing host to the infamous stadium, el Camp Nou, which holds almost 100,000 people. The club adopted their name in 1939 due to the induction of General Franco. He enforced on all clubs that they must have a Spanish name and the team thus became Club de futbol Barcelona. The Catalan flag was even removed from the team badge. Despite this, supporters of the club and speakers of Catalan knew that the Camp Nou was one of the only places, under Franco, in which they freely speak Catalan. Barcelona matches and the Camp Nou were thus seen as a refuge from the upcoming repression. The team highlighted the solidarity of the Catalan community.

Since being founded the club has won an abundance of titles and cups. They hold the record for number of wins in the ‘Copa del rey’, ‘Supercopa de Espana’, ‘Copa Eva Duarte’ and the ‘Copa de la liga.’ They have also won the Spanish title 19 times and been runner up 22 times. In terms of European success the club have won the UEFA Super Cup 3 times, the UEFA Cup Winners Cup 4 times and the UEFA Champions league 3 times. The most recent being last year where they beat English champions, Manchester United, in the final.

Barcelona provided a superlative performance in last year’s Champions league final which depicts the yearning of Catalonia itself to be noticed. With Catalonia’s desire to become autonomous, Barcelona provides a case to show that Catalonia is a force to be reckoned with through their conquering of Europe.