- Address: Carrer d’Arístides Maillol, 12, Barcelona
- Country: Spain
- Capacity: 99,000
- Opened: 24 September 1957
- Main use: Football
- Tenants: FC Barcelona (football)
Extra stadium info – Camp Nou
The stadium, formerly known as the Estadi del FC Barcelona, was one of the 1982 FIFA World Cup venues. It hosted the opening match of the 1982 FIFA World Cup, which was won by the national football team of Belgium after defeating the Argentine Republic. Erwin Vandenbergh scored the only goal of the game in front of 95,000 spectators. The stadium is among the largest sports venues by capacity in the world. In 2016, it hosted a rugby union match with 99,000 people in attendance, which became a record attendance for a rugby union match in Spain.
FC Barcelona
The venue is the home of FC Barcelona, the second sports team in the world with 100 million followers on its main social media page. The football club was founded in 1899. In 1929, they were crowned Spanish football champions for the first time in their history. In 2010, FC Barcelona became the second club with 20 Spanish top-flight football league titles. Real Madrid became the first club in 1980.
International trophies
In 1992, FC Barcelona were crowned European champions for the first time in their history. They won the UEFA Champions League, the European football championship for clubs, three times between 2006 and 2011. The Catalan club, nicknamed Barça, became the first football club to win the FIFA Club World Cup three times. Their arch-rivals Real Madrid became the second club with three FIFA Club World Cup titles.
Real Madrid
The fierce rivalry between FC Barcelona and Real Madrid is world famous. Any football match between the two football giants is known as El Clásico. The matches between both clubs usually are among the most viewed annual sporting events. El Clásico is sometimes identified with opposing political positions, with Real Madrid viewed as representing Spanish nationalism and FC Barcelona viewed as representing Catalan nationalism.
Famous players
In 2010, FC Barcelona created history when three players who came through its youth academy were chosen as the three best football players in the world. Those players were Andrés Iniesta Luján, Lionel Andrés Messi and Xavier Hernández Creus. Iniesta left FC Barcelona in 2018 for the Japanese club Vissel Kobe. In 2021, Xavier Hernández Creus became the manager of FC Barcelona. He is commonly known as Xavi. The former Spanish midfielder ended his professional football career in 2019 with Al-Sadd from Qatar.
Lionel Messi
Lionel Messi is widely regared as one of the best football players of all time. Messi was born in Rosario in 1987 and he became one of the first people in the world with 100 million followers on his or her social media page. The Argentine football star played hundreds of matches for FC Barcelona before he left the club in 2021. Messi scored hundreds of goals for the club from Catalonia before he signed with the French football club Paris Saint-Germain.
