Joan Gamper managed to bring together ten footballers, three Swiss, one German and six Spaniards, so that the Barça played the first game in its history, on December 8, 1899, on the soccer field of the Bonanova Velòdrominaugurated a few years before, whose playing field was nothing more than an esplanade full of potholes and irregularities with goals without nets. This Sunday marks 125 years since that legendary moment, which undoubtedly did not acquire the appropriate historical perspective at the time, since it was not much more than a match between friends, although the newspapers of the time, such as ‘La Vanguardia’ , they included it in their editions and even Gamper He sent chronicles to Switzerland.
The leader of the group of founders of Barça, Gamperwho served as captain since the founding assembly, was a regular practitioner of the new sport that had become fashionable during the 1990s, a city he had arrived in 1899. He had founded the Zurich and had played in the Excelsior and in the Baselin his Swiss native. He dreamed of establishing a club also in Barcelona in which he could play, since some groups of native soccer practitioners did not admit him, because he was Protestant and a foreigner.
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Gamper He founded the club with the idea that the members of the new entity would also be the players. And for that first game, Gamper He had some of his teammates in the games that were organized before the founding of the club, as well as directors from the first board and friends of his who helped make the first lineup.
The chosen rival was a team from the English Colony, or ‘English Team’which won 0-1 and five days after that inaugural match merged with the Barcelona club in its second assembly, in which the board of directors was also expanded. Many of the components of ‘English Team’ They had participated in the inauguration of the Bonanova Velòdromin 1895.
The second match was played on December 24, 1899, against Català, a great rival in the early days, with a 3-1 score in favor of Barça, which had already adopted the Barça colors by then.
The alignment
These were the ten pioneers of the first game: Urruelafirst goalkeeper, Marquis of San Román de Ayala, polo and tennis champion, as well as great-grandfather of the designer Ágata Ruiz de la Prada. Wild, first president of the club. Swiss, he was a gymnastics instructor. Lomba, Santander university student. He was a professor at several universities, a writer and literary critic. D’Ossosecretary of the first board, nephew of Sant Enric d’Ossó i Cervelló, canonized in 1993 and founder of the ‘Teresianas’, and for religious reasons he had some tension with Gamper and the other Protestants in the club. He had a printing press and collaborated in ‘Los Deportes’. Llobetpharmaceutical representative, practiced fencing and belonged to the Regatta Club. Lopezwho joined the board of directors in the second Assembly. Terradas, one of the founders of the club and future president. He saved the entity financially on several occasions. Gamper, the great legend of Barça’s beginnings, was the first captain, scorer and president on five occasions. Kunzlia Swiss friend of Gamperonly played that first game. Schilling, a German national, also played only the opening match, at the age of 47
