Futbol Club Barcelona, commonly known as Barcelona and familiarly as Barça, is a professional football club based in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, that competes in La Liga, the top flight of Spanish football.
Carlo Ancelotti is an Italian professional football manager and former player who is currently the manager of Real Madrid. Nicknamed "Carletto" in Italy and "Don Carlo" in Spain, he is regarded as one of the greatest managers of all time. Ancelotti is the most decorated manager in UEFA Champions League history, having won the trophy a record four times as coach. He is also the first and only one to have managed teams in five Champions League finals. As a player, he won the European Cup twice with AC Milan in 1989 and 1990, making him one of seven people to have won the European Cup or Champions League as both a player and a manager. Ancelotti is also the first and only manager ever to have won league titles in all of Europe's top five leagues. He has won the FIFA Club World Cup three times, and is also the manager with the joint-most UEFA Super Cup triumphs, having won the trophy on four occasions, managing Milan and Real Madrid.
Josep "Pep" Guardiola Sala is a Spanish professional football manager and former player, who is currently the manager of Premier League club Manchester City. Guardiola is the only manager to win the continental treble twice, the youngest to win the UEFA Champions League, and he also holds the records for the most consecutive league games won in La Liga, the Bundesliga and the Premier League. He is considered to be one of the greatest managers of all time.
Florentino Pérez Rodríguez is a Spanish businessman and the current president of football club Real Madrid, as well as Chairman and CEO of Grupo ACS, a civil engineering company.
This page details statistics of the European Cup and Champions League. Unless noted, these statistics concern all seasons since the inception of the European Cup in the 1955–56 season, and renamed since 1992 as the UEFA Champions League. This does not include the qualifying rounds of the UEFA Champions League, unless otherwise noted.
Galácticos are expensive, world-famous football players recruited during the "galácticos" policy pursued by Florentino Pérez during his presidency at Real Madrid, where in his first tenure between 2000 and 2006, he purchased at least one galáctico in the summer of every year. The club's second galáctico era began in 2009 with Pérez's return to presidency, and is considered to be more successful both economically and in terms of on-pitch achievements.
Josef "Jupp" Heynckes is a German retired professional footballer and manager. The majority of his player career was as a striker for Borussia Mönchengladbach in its golden era of the 1960s and '70s, when they won many national championships and the DFB-Pokal, as well as the UEFA Cup. During this period the team played in its only European Cup final in 1977, losing to Liverpool. He is the fourth-highest goalscorer in the history of the Bundesliga, with 220 goals. He was a member of the West Germany national team that won the UEFA Euro 1972 and the 1974 FIFA World Cup titles.
FC Bayern Munich is a German sports club based in Munich, Bavaria. It is best known for its professional football team, which plays in the Bundesliga, the top tier of the German football league system, and is the most successful club in German football history, having won a record 30 national titles and 20 national cups.
Adriano Correia Claro, known simply as Adriano, is a Brazilian former professional footballer. One of few players in professional football who are genuinely ambidextrous, he was capable of playing as a full-back or midfielder on both sides of the pitch.
Hans-Dieter "Hansi" Flick is a German professional football manager and former player. A former player at SV Sandhausen, Bayern Munich and 1. FC Köln, Flick began his managerial career at fourth-division club Victoria Bammental as a player-manager. In 2000, he was appointed manager of fellow fourth-division side 1899 Hoffenheim, with whom he gained promotion to the Regionalliga Süd, before departing in 2005. Between 2006 and 2014, he was the assistant coach of Germany under manager Joachim Löw as they won the 2014 FIFA World Cup, and subsequently served as sporting director of the German Football Association until 2017.
Football clubs from La Liga have won a record 70 continental and worldwide titles. Real Madrid, the most successful of them, have won the European Cup on 14 separate occasions and claimed 29 trophies in total. Barcelona have won twenty continental and worldwide titles, while Atlético Madrid have claimed eight. Sevilla have won eight and Valencia have won seven trophies to their name. Additionally, Deportivo La Coruña have been regulars in the UEFA Champions League, while Athletic Bilbao, Espanyol, Alavés, Zaragoza and Mallorca have all contested major finals in second-tier competitions and below. Smaller La Liga clubs, like Villarreal, Celta Vigo and Málaga have also found success in Europe, reaching the latter stages of the Champions League and winning the Europa League, as is the case with Villarreal.
Javier "Javi" Martínez Aginaga is a Spanish professional footballer who plays as a defensive midfielder or central defender for Qatar Stars League club Qatar SC.
Toni Kroos is a German professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for La Liga club Real Madrid and the Germany national team. Widely regarded as one of the greatest midfielders of all time, he is known for his vision, passing, creativity, crossing and set-piece ability. Kroos plays mainly as a central midfielder, but has also been deployed as a deep-lying playmaker in his career.
Real Madrid Club de Fútbol is a professional football club based in Madrid, Spain. The club was formed in 1902 as Madrid Football Club, and played its first competitive match on 13 May 1902, when it lost 3–1 in the semi-final of the Campeonato de Copa de S.M. Alfonso XIII against FC Barcelona. Real Madrid played against other local clubs in various regional tournaments, that served as qualifiers for the Copa del Rey, from 1902 to 1940. In 1929, the club became one of the founding members of La Liga, Spain's first national league. As of 2024, Real is one of only three clubs never to have been relegated from the top level of Spanish football, the others being Athletic Bilbao and Barcelona.
The history of Futbol Club Barcelona begins from the football club's founding in 1899 up until the present day. FC Barcelona, also known simply as Barcelona and familiarly as Barça, is based in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. The club was founded in 1899 by a group of Swiss, Catalan, German, and English footballers led by Joan Gamper. The club played amateur football until 1910 in various regional competitions. In 1910, the club participated in their first of many European competitions, and has since amassed fourteen UEFA trophies and a sextuple. In 1928, Barcelona co-founded La Liga, the top-tier in Spanish football, along with a string of other clubs. As of 2023, Barcelona has never been relegated from La Liga, a record they share with Athletic Bilbao and arch-rival Real Madrid.
Thiago Alcântara do Nascimento, known as Thiago Alcântara or simply Thiago, is a professional footballer who plays as a central midfielder for Premier League club Liverpool.
In 2009–10, FC Barcelona started the new season with the prospect of winning six major competitions in the 2008–2009 season. They contested for the Supercopa de España, UEFA Super Cup, FIFA Club World Cup, Copa del Rey, La Liga, and the UEFA Champions League. During the summer transfer window, the club swapped their top league goal scorer during the treble season, Samuel Eto'o to Italy's Inter Milan in exchange for Zlatan Ibrahimović, along with €48 million, bringing the total to €69 million. On 16 May, Barcelona claimed its 20th league title with a then-record 99 points via a 4–0 victory over relegated side Valladolid to finish their 2009–10 season with four titles.
The 2017–18 season was Real Madrid Club de Fútbol's 114th season in existence and the club's 87th consecutive season in the top flight of Spanish football. It covered a period from 1 July 2017 to 30 June 2018.
