UEFA Champions League
Quater Final 1st Leg
Season 2010/11
16th February 2011
Arsenal [2 - 1] FC Barcelona
Goals
26' [0 - 1] D. Villa
78' [1 - 1] R.v. Persie
83' [2 - 1] A. Arshavin
Highlights
1st Half / 2nd Half
Full time Analysis
Arsenal vs. Barcelona
>> Credit by albiondean
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The History of FC Barcelona
FC Barcelona, or Futbol Club Barcelona, is a sports club based in Barcelona, Spain. Though it is primarily known for its football club, FC Barcelona also consists of four other professional sports teams, competing in basketball, handball, futsal, and roller hockey. FC Barcelona, known familiarly by its fans as Barça, has been around for over one hundred years and has been consistently popular throughout.
FC Barcelona was founded in 1899 by Joan Gamper, a Swiss businessman who had relocated to Spain after falling in love with the country. Gamper sought to start a football club and placed an ad in a paper, receiving several responses and quickly assembling a team that went on to emerge as one of the leading teams in their home region of Catalonia and the greater country of Spain. In 1902, the club won the Copa Macaya.
In 1908, Gamper became club president in order to save the club from going under. FC Barcelona had been experiencing hardships due to many of their best players retiring and the fact that they had not won anything since 1905. Gamper was able to get the club its own stadium, formally moving into the Carrer Industria on March 14, 1909. Gamper was also able to recruit top-notch players and managers and get the club back into the business of winning with him at the helm. The club moved yet again in 1922 to an even larger stadium, Las Cortes, which eventually had a capacity of a whopping 60,000.
The mid- 1920s and 30s marked a period of hardship for the club. During this period, a crowd at a Barça game jeered the Royal March as a spontaneous objection to Spain's dictatorship. As a result, the stadium was shut down for three months and Gamper was forced to concede the presidency of the club. The club's founder committed suicide on July 30, 1930 following a bout of depression brought on by personal and financial problems.
After the Spanish Civil War, Dictator Francisco Franco banned football clubs from using non-Spanish names. As a result, FC Barcelona was changed to Club de Futbol Barcelona. During this period, the club was oppressed by Franco's regime, which favored their rivals, Real Madrid. Despite the political climate and oppression, FC Barcelona was able to go on and win many trophies and championships during the 1940s and 50s.
Though they became the first club to beat Real Madrid in a European Cup eliminatory in 1961, the 60s were not a great decade for CF Barcelona. Because the club lacked money to acquire better players after building a new stadium, the league was dominated by Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid. The 1970s, however, saw the arrival of the soon-to-be-legendary Johan Cruyff, who led the team to the championship in '74.
Despite winning many championships, the next fourteen years saw the team experience conflicts with their management. Finally, in 1988 Johan Cruyff returned as team manager and assembled the "Dream Team", a group of elite players. Cruyff led the team to many victories and remains their most successful manager to date. After Cruyff's departure in 1994, managers and players came and went, but the team continued having limited successes.
Finally, in 2003 a young new president took over FC Barcelona. Joan Laporta brought in manager Frank Rijkaard and many international stars that led the team to many victories for a few years. In 2008, after many failures Laporta decided to replace Rijkaard with Barça B coach Josep Guardiola.
To see first hand how Barca does with their new lineup, see them play at the Nou Camp in Barcelona. Buy FC Barcelona tickets in advance from Simply Barcelona Tickets to ensure ticket availability
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mark_Hazard
FC Barcelona Players - Lionel Messi
If any player can be said to be the natural successor to Diego Maradona, then surely it must be Lionel Messi.
Born in 1987, he signed for Barcelona from Newell's Old Boys of Argentina at 13 years of age, and since that time Messi has been marked for super stardom. But for a niggling succession of injuries, he surely would have been a Ballon D'Or winner by now.
What has always singled out 'Leo' as being special is his ability to dribble at speed with the ball under perfect control. Although primarily a winger, he can play more central or even deeper but, whatever his position, when he has the ball at his feet, the fans always expect something special from him.
Since scoring his first league goal for Barça in May, 2005 Messi has become a talisman for the team - his modest attitude off the pitch and his constant praising of the work of his team mates ensuring that the fans always hold him in the highest esteem.
Life wasn't always easy for Messi, though, despite his prodigious talent. As a youngster, Lionel suffered from a growth preventing hormonal disorder - Barcelona helped tempt him to Spain by paying for his medical treatment. This short stature, ironically, has enabled Leo to have that low centre of gravity that enables him to weave through defences.
Despite being wooed by the Spanish national team, Messi has always been eager to represent the country of his birth - he was voted player of the tournament in the Under 20 World Cup in 2005, where he was also top goal scorer. In the 2007 Copa America he was voted young player of the tournament. He was not afraid to let it be known how desperate he was to represent Argentina in the 2008 Olympic Games and although Barcelona appeared reluctant at first to release him, he ultimately helped Argentina win the gold medal - creating the only goal of the final in the process.
Playing for the national team hasn't brought constant success, however. On his international debut, against Hungary in 2005, Messi came on as substitute in the second half and was sent off 40 seconds later - allegedly elbowing the defender who was tugging his shirt to hold him back. Then, in the 2006 World Cup, Pekerman, the coach, was the subject of immense criticism from fans because of his seeming reluctance to play Messi in what was, for the Argentines, a disappointing tournament.
And those Maradona comparisons? Well, the great man himself did say at one point that Messi was his natural heir. And if you want to see a carbon copy of the 'hand of God' goal then search on You Tube for Messi's 'goal' in June, 2007 - against Espanyol in a local derby, would you believe!
While you're there, though, remind yourself as well of the goal against Getafe in the Copa del Rey, when the little maestro picked the ball up and ran through just about the whole team to round the keeper and score. If that doesn't bring back memories of Maradona then nothing will.
Despite the comparisons, Lionel Messi isn't the second Maradona. A modest, cool-headed, softly-spoken personality, Lionel Messi never seems to find himself in the gossip columns. Instead, he just gets on with the job of trying to be as good a footballer as he can be: and that is as good as any forward player in the world game.
Lionel Messi is a great player in his own right. And he can only get better.
Ensure that you see Leo Messi playing for FC Barcelona at the Nou Camp and order FC Barcelona tickets online. Check out Simply Barcelona Tickets for details.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mark_Hazard
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