AC Milan's Champions League final opponent is the terrifying Barcelona!

On October 22, 1899, Hans Gamble published an advertisement in a magazine claiming that he wanted to establish a football club. At www.biquge.info the meeting held on November 29 at Gimnasio Solé, a total of eleven players from Switzerland, England and Catalonia were added to the team: Gualteri Wild, Lluísd\'Ossó, Bartomeu Terradas, Otto Kunzle, OttoMaier, Enric Ducal, Pere Cabot, Carles Pujol, Josep Llobet, John Parsons and William Parsons announced the official formation of FC Barcelona on this day.

At the first meeting of Barcelona, the president of the club was elected and the name of the team was named, and the position of president was decided to be held by Gualteri Wild, a local Catalan, and the name of the club was Barcelona Football Club. The club's emblem adopts the same coat of arms as the city of Barcelona (that is, a white background with a red cross on the left, and a red and yellow stripe on the right) to represent the relationship between Catalonia, while the jersey is based on the color of the jersey of Gamble's former club Basully, with dark red on the left and blue on the right, separating the two colors of blue and red in the middle, and Gamble just reversed the two colors as the founding jersey of Barcelona.

In December 1899, Barcelona participated in the tournament for the first time, and under the influence and impetus of the team, the Spanish royal family decided to create the Spanish Copa del Rey football tournament. In 1900, Barcelona participated in the first Macaya Cup (i.e. the Catalan Regional League), winning four games, one and losing one, scoring a total of 47 goals and finishing second.

Early FC Barcelona

Early FC Barcelona

In 1901, Barcelona won the Macaya Cup with eight wins, which was also Barcelona's first championship trophy.

In 1901, the first Copa del Rey was held, but Barcelona failed to win the trophy until 1910, followed by two more in 1912 and 1913.

In 1902, together with Esspino, they were invited to the Spanish Cup, which celebrated the accession of King Alfonso XIII of Spain, where Barcelona first beat Madrid 3-1 to qualify for the final, but lost 2-1 to Bilbauscaya in the final.

Formative stage (1909-1919)

The team gets up early in lineup

The team gets up early in lineup

In November 1908, the club was in a difficult time and 38 members were preparing to leave. Determined to keep the club running, this was the first time Gamble became president of the club, and in less than 10 years of his chairmanship, the membership grew from 201 in 1909 to 2,973. During this time, Barcelona laid a solid foundation and gradually became the football club that was originally conceived.

On March 14, 1909, the Carrer dela Indústria stadium was officially inaugurated as the home stadium of the team, which had a capacity of 8,000 people.

To celebrate the event, the club organized an emblem design competition the following year. Carles Comamala won the competition and his design became the emblem used by the club ever since, with slight tweaks until the last tweak, in 2012.

In the new sports city, Barcelona participated in the inaugural Pyrenees Cup, a tournament in which the best teams from Languedoc (an ancient province in the south of France), Mont Pyrenees (a place name in southwestern France) and Aquitaine (a historical region in southwestern France), the Basque Country and Catalonia participated in a tournament in which the best teams from these regions, all of whom were founding members of the Spanish Frontier. This competition was the most prestigious event of its time. From 1910 to 1913, when the first tournament was held, Barcelona won the trophy four years in a row. Carles Comamala, Amechazurra and Jack Greenwell all played four tournaments as integral members of the time, with Jack Greenwell going on to become the club's first full-time coach in 1917. The last edition of the trophy was held in Barcelona in 1914 and was won by Barça's local rival Espanyol.

During the same period, Barcelona changed the club's official language from Old Spanish to Catalan, which gradually evolved into an important symbol of Catalan identity. For many fans, joining a club is not just about participating in the game itself, but also about the identity of the club. On February 4, 1917, the club held its first commemorative match for Ramón Torralba, a player who played for Barcelona from 1913 to 1928. The match was played against local side Trassa, and in the end Barcelona won 6-2.

A historical photo of the team

A historical photo of the team

Gamble also launched a new campaign to recruit more members, and by 1922 the club had more than 20,000 members, who had financed the construction of a new course. The club moved in with the construction of the new stadium, LesCortes, and in the same year it was inaugurated with a capacity of 30,000 people, before being expanded to 60,000 in the forties.

Gamble recruited Jack Greenwell as head coach and is the first full-time head coach in FC Barcelona's history. After this recruitment, the club's fortunes on the pitch began to turn. During the Gamble era, Barcelona won 11 Copa del Catalu?a, six Copa del Rey and four Pyrenees, ushering in the first 'golden era' in the club's history.

In the 1911/12 season, the legendary Filipino goalscorer Paulino Alcantara joined Barcelona at the age of 15 and quickly became Barca's top scorer, with the striker, who often wears a scarf around his waist, scoring an incredible 369 goals in 357 appearances, helping Barcelona to five Spanish championships and 10 Catalan titles.

(To be continued.) )