An Evaluation Essay of FC Barcelona Soccer Team
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An Evaluation Essay of FC Barcelona Soccer Team
Introduction
Soccer is the most favorable sport in the world. Professionalization of the European Soccer and heavy investment on football clubs lead to the listing of those clubs in the stock exchange. FC Barcelona is one of the most leading soccer club located in Spain and generates billions of revenue to the national government (Haan, Koning & Witteloostuijn 3). “FC,” means Football Club. This paper gives a limelight of the history of FC Barcelona, the facilities and services offered by the club and the playing style of the players, which makes them a successful club. Pep Guardiola’s record in 2011 is also highlighted.
History of FC Barcelona
A Swiss businessperson called Hans Gamper founded FC Barcelona on 29 November 1899. Les Corts pitch was the first one to be established on 20 May 1922. This pitch referred to as “the cathedral of football” accommodated 30,000 spectators. By 1924, Barcelona had 12,207 supporters. 1928/1929 season saw Barcelona win their first Spanish League Championship.
By 1950, the team enjoyed a massive support of 26, 300 affiliated supporters and at the same time, the team signed in the first star called Ledislao Kubala. Between 1951 and 1953, Barcelona won a series of titles including the league, the cup, the Latin cup, the Eva Duarte and the Martini Rossi. Due to the growth of the club, the club expanded and founded Camp Nou Stadium in 1957 with an initial capacity of 80,000 spectators.
By this time, the team had 40,000 affiliated supporters.
In 1971, Barcelona won another title and in 1973, the signing in of Johann Cruyff, the Dutch player saw the team win the league championship. By 1997, the club had 69,566 affiliated supporters (Allen & Equia 2).
To date, FC Barcelona has won European Champions League 7 times, the league titles for 21 times, UEFA Supper Cup 7 times, and Spanish Cup 26 times. UEFA ranks Barcelona in the first position compared with the other clubs in Europe. Barcelona enjoys a massive support from all over the world. The contribution of Head coach, players, and playing style make FC Barcelona a stable and successful team in the world.
Facilities and the Services of FC Barcelona
FC Barcelona’s consideration is more than a football club in the world; the club now has numerous fabulous facilities and holds various events. The Camp Nou Stadium in Barcelona city stands out to be the most admired place to be. The stadium holds more than 100,000 attendants and is one of the legendary venues of soccer in Europe and in the world (Barcelona Turisme Convention Bureau 4).
FC Barcelona’s Camp Nou stadium is an ideal setting for holding events and meetings. They have professionals ranging from hospitality, marketing, public relations and communication. They have magnificent rooms for accommodation. The stadium has enough space for holding events such as the corporate meetings, cocktails, show rooms, company’s games and tournaments, sports clinics, trainings and consultations (Barcelona Turisme Convention Bureau 5-6).
The club collaborates with the most performing catering units in the city to improve their catering services to their clients. They offer catering services ranging from the small units to the biggest world events. The catering services offer include the gala suppers, cocktail and other drinks, cocktail lunches or suppers and the snacks (Barcelona Turisme Convention Bureau 22).
FC Barcelona now has more than one hundred years of history and more than 160,000 members all over the world (Barcelona Turisme Convention Bureau 4). The performance of FC Barcelona worldwide attributes to the strong technical team and the experienced players. From the FC Barcelona’s website the technical team comprises of Tito Vilanova who is the chief coach, Jordi Roura, the Assistant Coach, three fitness couches namely Aureli Altimira, Edu Pons, Francesc Cos i Paco Seirullo and Jose Ramón de la Fuente. Together with the players, this technical team offers the club the best it can achieve.
Evaluation of the FC Barcelona players
Immense contributions of the players play an important role in the success of FC Barcelona. At the back of the pitch are Victor Valdes, Danny Alves and Gerrard Pique who are experienced in the defense. Forward performing players include Andres Iniesta, Lionnel Messi, and David Villa who are the main team scorers. Xavi Anerndes is an attacking midfielder. He receives the passing ball from defensive midfielder, and then passes it to the strikers. Xavi has skills to compete with opponent players for the ball. Interestingly, most of the players of FC Barcelona come from one country-Spain and they play the national matches together. During the 2011 champion’s league semi-final against Barca, Mourinho feared the attack of Messi, Xavi and Iniesta (Hunter 14).
Barca players play the game in the right way and they truly enjoy their football career. Their accurate passes and good ball control makes them very successful (Hunter 8). The combinations of Messi, Villa, Pique, Valdes, and Iniesta among others from one national team enable the club to perform. They can easily coordinate and understand one another.
Barca players have been named differently due to their outstanding performances for example Sergio busquets who is the enforcer, Victor Valdes who is the heart breaker, Pedro, the comeback kid and Eric Abidal who is the convert. This signifies the outstanding performance of Barca (Hunter 5)
Playing style of FC Barcelona
During the 2011 UEFA Champions League finals with Manchester United, Barcelona’s style and dominion of the ball gave them a clean sweep of the cup. Manchester United Coach admitted the Pep Guardiola’s style as mesmerizing. Their playing style is quite impressive. Guardiola derived the tactical style of 3-4-3 from Cruyff where he played well as a midfielder assisted by Ronald Koeman just like Xavi of today’s Barcelona (Englund 6).
The fast swift of three strikers in the pattern makes Barca successful. The well-coordinated centre of the team, their style, rules, philosophy and success also make the team interesting to watch. In this style, there are four players at the centre. Barcelona’s overall’s ball possession impresses spectators and forms the epicentre of the team’s philosophy and unique identity. They have a tactic of circulating the ball to all the players showing a sense of unselfishness and team-oriented nature.
Despite the chaos that normally arise especially with their rivals Real Madrid, Barca are known to possess the spirit of defending the team to the later making them more successful. This gives them a sense of collective responsibility (Englund 7). Barcelona plays a positional game where they open up the field for easy identification of free players. They utilize all the sections of the field and all the players.
Conclusion
Soccer is the most valued sport in the world. It acts as entertainment for most of the people especially the youths and the world recognizes FC Barcelona as the most performing football club. The wide range of services and facilities they have made them different from other clubs. Their history dates back to the last two centuries and their outstanding performance makes it the best in the world. The current state of Barcelona reflects not only the long history they have but also their consistent performance since its establishment.