FCBARCELONA.CAT

HISTORY OF THE SECTION

The section with the greatest social and most promising future of F C Barcelona is basketball; a sport which takes second place for Barcelona fans.

Founded on the 24th August 1926, the blue and claret basketball team played its early matches in the sports complex of Sol de Baix (between the current Avinguda Madrid and the Travessera de Les Corts). However, it was not consolidated in Catalonia until the thirties. In 1940 after the civil war, FC Barcelona basketball team played in the First Division on a new court located next to the south goal on the football pitch at Les Corts”
The best era was yet to come in the second half of the forties with a consolidated Barcelona at the top of Spanish basketball.

Inauguration of The Palau

Following a period of crisis in the 1958 – 1959 season, the team won the Spanish League and the Generalísimo Cup. The subsequent period of decline lasted quite a long time and the inauguration of the Palau Blaugrana (1971) despite giving the club a push, did not help to give the Barcelona fans the success that they had long been waiting for and Real Madrid remained the most powerful Spanish team at that time. However in the 1977-1978 season Barcelona won the “Copa del Rey” beating Real Madrid 103 to 96.

First European award

In the eighties the team began one of the best periods in history thanks to Juan Antonio San Epifano “Epi” Nacho Solozábal and Chicho Sibilio amongst others. Thus, in the 1980 – 1981 season the club won the league again after twenty two years of disappointment. In the 1984 –1985 campaign FC Barcelona achieved their first European trophy winning the “Recopa” beating Zalgiris Kaunas (77 -73). This trophy was won again the following year against Scavolini italiano (101-86). Then, in the year 1986 – 1987 the team won the European “Supercopa” initiating a stage of supremacy which would last for three consecutive years.

The Euroleague, the long awaited award

At the end of the twentieth century, the generation of Andrés Jiménez, Audie Norris and Epi made way for Juan Carlos Navarro, Rodrigo de la Fuente, Roberto Dueñas and Pau Gasol. For a period of ten years the team kept up the performances achieved in the eighties and won four leagues, three consecutively. Three “Copas del Rey” and one “Copa Korac”

However the final recognition at a European level came in 2002 -2003. The Barça of that time led by Dejan Bodiroga, Sarunas Jasikevicius and Navarro himself won the long-awaited Euro League title, formerly known as the “Copa de Europa”, overcoming Benetton de Treviso in the Final Four in the packed Palau Sant Jordi That same year the team achieved the European milestone they also took the ACB league and the “Copa del Rey”.