FC Barcelona by Cheshana Chawla - 7A

FCBarcelona

Agile, athletic and vigilant ideally describe the players of FCBarcelona. FCBarcelona is one of the most nonpareil football club. FCBarcelona is mine and more than half of the world’s favorite football club. This article mainly emphasizes on the beginning of the club, the history, famous and renewed players and some miserable obstacles faced by their club.

What is FCB?

If you are a football fan…. You have probably heard of FCBarcelona… but, let me tell u a little more about it…

FCBarcelona is a successful and zealous football club. It derives its name from Barcelona in Spain which is why FCB stands for FOOTBALL CLUB BARCELONA. What makes the team successful are the 82 titles, the 10 Ballon d’or awards. Ballon d’or awards that are given individually to the best player of the year. It is given during the FIFA Tournament. FCB has won 24 Laliga tournaments, a Spain football league. They have also won 11 supercopa de Espana which is again another Spanish championship. What makes them very zealous  is that they are the second most valuable team, they are the 2^nd richest team in the world and have never been relegated to a lower division.

Few reasons why I love this team are:

-           the hard work that each player puts in and how they inspire young players;

-          Stunning victories which keeps them very prominent;

-          Players like Messi and Neymar who make s their team fantabulous.  

FCB’S logo looks like this...

The crest is a bowl shaped design, they contain 3 regions I which contains a cross. The regions are of red and yellow bars of origin that is the most representative symbols of Barcelona. Did you know that the club held a contest for their logo. ‘Carles comamala won the crest, which the club still wares on their jersey, which has gone through an evolution

The FCB’S jersey looks like this….

The home colors consist of red and blue also similar to their crest. Their jersey has also gone through an evolution just like the crest. It has evolved from a formal jersey with sleeves to a jersey like the one above. The evolution looks a little like this..

How did FCB come up?

Considering Hans Gamper was a poor man, he came up with the world’s best team….

Back in 1899, Hans Gamper a Swiss football player wished to start his own football club on 22 October. He made an advertisement when he declared to start the football club on hearing these 11 players attend a meeting.

 This team day by day got better and stronger. They participated in multiple tournaments for example the Copa Del Rey and Cope Masaya. By 1914 they already had rivals the Espanyal. They grew even stronger and better. On 1917 they held their first testimonial match to honor Roman Torral ba, a Barca team mate. He had a long career with Barca. The match was against Terrassa and won 6-2 and during Gamper's –led era they won by 11 goals in what an amazing win isn’t it? Their first few matches were amazing, they won against unbeatable teams and their rivals for example the matches during the Spain league ‘Copa magayo’ but, with winning comes loosing, they lost against ‘biz cayo’ an amazing football team at that time. They lost by 1-2. Barca has had such stupendous wins in the past…thanks to their amazing coach named ‘josep samitier.

Famous players

Even thought there are amazing players like Ronaldo… the players of Barca are no less….

LEONAL ANDRES MESSI

You have probably heard of him. He is the best football player across the world in my opinion he is the GOD of FOOTBALL since he is hardworking, swift, smart, attentive, talented and vigilant. This qualifies him as an outstanding footballer,. Did you know he left his international career only because he missed one penalty shot, well that is how it works  in sports. He is extremely talented since he has won 5 ballon d’or awards ,8 Laliga titles ,4 Copa Del Rey . He holds the records for the most goals scored during the Laliga season which is 50 goals and 80 goals in one football season. He also made prodigy who at the age 24 became the club’s all time leading goal scorer.  Messi is very inspirational since he started playing football at the age of 13 and made his competitive debuted at the age of 17. He started of as a defender and then made to the best forward. He is often compared to the world famous ‘christiano Ronaldo ‘since they both are amazing at football. Messi is also known as LM10, since his jersey’s number is 10

NAME	Cristiano Ronaldo	Leonal Messi
AGE	31	29
JERSEY NUMBER	7	10
INTERNATIONAL TEAM	Portugal	Argentina
OVERALL GOALS	518	488
ASSISTS	180	201
BALLON D’OR AWRDS	3	5
GOLDEN FOOT AWRD	4	4
KNOWN AS	CR7	LM10
LEAGUE	LaLiga	LaLiga
WEEKNESS	He goes to ground far too easily and sometimes tries a trick when a simple pass would do. Despite his scoring he sometimes messes up a goal scoring opportunity by doing fancy moves	Too often he searches for a way to finish moves by himself without looking for teammates in a better position to shoot at goal.
GAMES PLAYED	742	611

ANDRES INIESTA

 A Spanish professional footballer. He still is an active man at the age of 32. He is the captain for the greatest teams of all times FCBarcelona’. He serves as a midfielder. Did you know that he has won 30 trophies. He started playing at a very young age and has played for under 16, 19, and 21 before making his debut in 2006. He is known worldwide since he has been voted for the UEFA  team 5 times. He received the Golden foot award  in 2014 . In my opinion he is very talented footballer.

 NEYMAR JR  

Another talented, young, swift, competitive, famous, Brazilian and Barca footballer. He has made the caption for the Brazilian club. He came third in the FIFA  Ballon d’or award , won the FIFA puskas Award, and  given to the male, who scored the most numbers of goals. He also made his first debut at the age of 17. Can u believe he was voted as the best young football player of 2009 and 2011. He was the top scorer in 2010 Copa do Brazil with 11 goals. He serves as a forward and is only 24 years old. Nyman is the fifth highest goal scorer for his national team. He is another inspirational, godly footballer. He was also compared to the football legends Pele and Ronaldhno while he played for his international team, Brazil.

*INSERT TABLE (OF THEIR NAMES ,GOALS SCORED,TROPHIES ,AGE ,INTERNATIONAL TEAM AND  UNIFORM NUMBER*

NAME	LEONAL ANDRES MESSI	ANDRES INIESTA	NEYMAR
AGE	29	32	24
GOALS SCORED	482	59	221
POSITION	FORWARD	MID FIELDER	FORWARD
INTERNATIONAL TEAM	-	SPAIN	BRAZIL
SQUAD NUMBER	10	8	11

History

In 1988, Johan Cruyff returned to the club as manager and he assembled the Dream Team.he used a mix of players- some outstanding Spanish players and some very well known international players. Whiten 10 years the young players had nearly become professional. Under Cruyff’s guidance their team won 4 consecutive LaLiga titles. They beat Sampdoria in both the 1989 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup final and the 1992 European Cup final at Wembley. They also won a Copa del Rey in 1990, the European Super Cup  in 1992 and the Supercopa de España trophies. With 11 trophies. Because of all of this Johan became the most successful manger. Sometime later Johan was replaced by  Bobby Robson. During his led-era he recruited Ronaldo from his previous club but, Ronald stayed for only a little time since he left for  Internazionale a club outside Italy. Fortunately other amazing football players came in like  Luís Figo, Patrick Kluivert Luis Enrique,they then won the Copa del Rey and La Liga double in 1998.  

That amount of gratitude that most people have for these legends can’t be put into words.

Xavi Hernandez was an stunning football player he was a very successful. He always picked the player for the best position and made an amazing captian.He  served as a midfielder. At the age of 11 he  made his first-team debut against Mallorca  in August 1998. Since then he has played 700 matches, scored 82 goals and made more than 180 assists for over 50 players. Xavi is the first player in Barcelona's history to play 150 international matches. He is known for  the tiki-taka  passing style of play, and is considered to be one of the greatest central midfielders of all time. The Wikipedia reads ‘He is also considered by some to be the greatest Spanish player ever.’ He left Barca in great honor in 2015.

   Victor Valdés spent most of his professional career with Barcelona in La Liga, and is regarded as one of the best goalkeepers in the club's history, having appeared in 535 official games for the club and won 21 major titles, notably six La Liga titles and the UEFA Champions League championships. Valdés also won the Zamora Trophy a record five times. He currently holds the club records as goalkeeper with most appearances in the league and in official competition. He has also played for Manchester united.

 Ronaldo de Assis, commonly known as Ronaldinho.  His main playing position is as an attacking midfielder or forward. He won the FIFA World Player of the Year award in 2004 and 2005. Renowned for his technique, tricks, dribbling, overhead kicks, no-look passes and free kicks, Ronaldinho is regarded to be one of the best players of his generation. He was the sixth most popular sportsperson on Facebook, behind Cristiano Ronaldo, Messi, Beckham, Neymar and Kaká, with 31 million Facebook fans.   

Did you know ….. In April 2014, FIFA banned the club from buying players for the next two transfer  following the violation of the FIFA's rules about the transfer of footballers aged under 18.A statement on FIFA's website read "With regard to the case in question, FC Barcelona has been found to be in breach of art. 19 of the Regulations in the case of ten minor players.”

On 17 May, in a game where they needed to defeat Atlético Madrid (who had eliminated them from the UEFA Champions League in the quarterfinals earlier in the year) to be crowned champions of La Liga for the 23rd time, they drew after Atlético defender Diego Godín headed in the equalizer in the 49th minute, giving Atlético the championship

Obstacles

Even though there is a lot of competition in Spain…. Barca makes it to the top.

There is often a fierce rivalry between the two strongest teams in a national league, and during the  La Liga,  the game between Barcelona and Real Madrid is known as El Clásico which means the classic match. From the start of national competitions the clubs were already rival regions in Spain: Catalonia and Castile, as well as the two cities. The rivalry affects the political and cultural tensions  between Catalans and the Castilians.

Barcelona's rival in European football is Italian club A.C. Milan.  The team against which Barcelona has played the most matches (19), it is also the second most played match in European competitions after Bayern Munich – Real Madrid (22).

On 30^th July 1930, Barcelona fans woke up to miserable news… the death of Hans Gamper. He had been the captain and the soul of Barca, until dictator primo de rivera separated him from his team, sometime later his company went through a bankrupt and then there was the stock market crisis, all of this got Gamper into depression and made him commit suicide . The club experienced a spot and social crisis and a number of members dropped.

Yes I am a huge Barcelona fan and wholeheartedly a supporter. There is a  saying.. “if you don’t support us when we lose then don’t support us when we win” I agree with that do u ?…It is and will always be a pleasure for me to watch them play. I hope you are now a Barca fan.