Before "Tiki Taka", before Messi, before cunts like Busquets and Pique, before television ruined football, before the Nou Camp was a tourist attraction for matchday evenings, before the Ronaldinho hype, there was a sports club that reinvented itself in the early 90s. This is Barcelona.
Mes que un club was a reality back then for all Barcelona fans. You supported Barcelona, then you supported them everywhere, not just 11 guys in a football field with complete ignorance of Andres Jimenez, Juan Antonio San Epifanio, Juan Navarro. The name of Valero Rivera Lopez giving you more goosebumps than the name of Johann Cruyff. You hear the names of Enric Masip, David Barrufet and Rafael Guijosa and you're filled with pride. These guys are Barcelona as much as Carles Puyol, Xavi Hernandez and Josep Guardiola.
It began with their basketball team. A team that had to defeat a European powerhouse in rivals Real Madrid who were sitting at the top of Europe in both football and basketball at the time. Barcelona managed to create a team that could finally beat them in the late 80s and eventually became a strong team in European competitions as well finishing 2nd in the Euroleague 4 times (1990, 1991, 1996, 1997). This was followed by an excellent Handball program that brought the first ever European Tier 1 trophy to the club in 1991. A dynasty followed soon in the mid-to-late 90s, sweeping 5 Champions Leagues in a row.
But for Barcelona fans, as all sport clubs fans, the crown of the jewel is always the football team. And Barcelona in football had been struggling. The early 80s in particular was dominated by the Basques (Sociedad 1981, 1982 & Bilbao 1983, 1984) and even one of the greatest teams Real Madrid had ever had could not dominate as much as they could have, but they took their turn in the late 80s by winning 5 in a wor. Barcelona only won 1 league title in the 80s, the 1985 championship. That was their first league title since 1974 and the one stop gap between Basque domination to Madrid domination. The drought was even longer back in '74 as their previous league title was in 1960, with Inter legends Helenio Herrera as managed and Luis Suarez as integral part of that team and eventual Balon D'Or winner, when they finished joint top of the league with perennial Champions of Europe and rivals, Real Madrid. Needless to say, Barcelona was not one of the teams you would think of when you talked about the best Spanish teams in the late 80s. They were seen as a strong team, popular in the Catalonia area, with good enough history, but they were far from being the definite #2 club of Spain and there was no question that Real Madrid was the absolute top team.
By 1990, Real Madrid had 25 league titles whilst their main rivals Barcelona (22 wins) and Athletic Bilbao (23 wins) settled for the Cup. With Real Madrid having 16 wins. That was pretty much the way to fight for 2nd place in Spanish football.
In the league, Barcelona was second with 10 championships, both Athletic Bilbao and Atletico Madrid followed with 8 championships while the next team in line was Valencia with just 4 trophies, with Sociedad winning 2 and the Andalusian clubs of Seville had only one between them, Betis and Sevilla that is. This has made Spanish football really one sided historically.
Athletic Bilbao, true to their roots, have refused to 'modernize'. They refused to spend big, they refused to play any non-Basques and that meant that they refused to bring in foreign players. Barcelona won their last title with Bernd Schuster in the middle for the majority of the 80s. They brought Argentine sensation Diego Maradona to the club. It was becoming clear that Bilbao would struggle and be left behind since they could not compete with the same means. Bilbao to this day remains with 8 championships. Barcelona on the other hand, in the space of 30 years, has surpassed Real Madrid's 25 championships of 1990 by winning 16 trophies, whilst Real Madrid as we know remains the Queen of Spain with 33 championships to date. The difference of 15 league titles and a battle for 2nd place has been reduced to just 8 trophies, and a clear message that the race is for the top spot now and Barcelona will no longer be content to be the 1st in the village and 2nd in town. They're going all the way.
But something brought this. Why was this Barcelona and not Athletic Bilbao, Real Sociedad, Atletico Madrid or Valencia, who also tried to dethrone Real Madrid during their late 80s dynasty?
The answer came in the face of this man:
This was the man Johann Cruyff - in his third season of managing Barcelona - was looking for.
This was the man that skyrocketted Barcelona from a good side to a force that would dominate Europe.
Hristo Stoichkov,
El Pistolero.
At the time only three foreign players were allowed and Barcelona already had Michael Laudrup and Ronald Koeman. They had sold Brazilian center back Aloisio to Porto to accomodate their new star. Michael Laudrup was a beast of a player (you can see older posts for him) who was selected by Juventus to replace Michel Platini. But he couldn't adapt to Italy, nor fulfill such a difficult task and he was sold to Barcelona. He refound his joy when he teammed up with Stoichkov and the legend was then reborn.
Cruyff then decided in 1993 that he also needed to get Romario who had spent 5 amazing seasons at PSV. But that posed a problem as only 3 foreigners could be fielded at any time in the Spanish league and even worse, UEFA did not allow you to even have the extra foreigner on the bench. That alienated Stoickhov and Cruyff. But guess what? Romario and Stoichkov became best buddies. But they were all united in not getting along with Cruyff, including Michael Laudrup.
Truth be told, Barcelona was going upwards since the late 80s as they had reached won the Cup Winners Cup in 1989 against Sampdoria.
This made Barcelona's league title drought very short this time. Stoichkov won the league in his first season. And he'd win again and again and again. Four times in a row.
In his first season, Barcelona reached the CWC final again, but this time lost to Alex Ferguson's Manchester United, but Stoichkov was out with an injury for this game.
Barcelona had also won their first European Cup in their first attempt with Stoichkov. 1992 European Champions vs Sampdoria. The task to dethrone Real Madrid from Europe had began as they had failed to beat Romanian side Steaua Bucuresti in their previous attempt in 1986. At this time, Real Madrid was still the #1 team in Europe but only had 6 trophies, whilst Milan and Liverpool were close with 4 titles each. Milan was on the rise, too, whilst Liverpool was just returning from a ban from European football. Real Madrid on the other hand was lost when Barcelona dominated Spain. They were not accustomed to a team winning the domestic title 3+ times in a row. Not only because their rivals were becoming dominant whilst they were slipping away, but because this was unprecedented in Spanish football. Only Real Madrid had managed streaks like that.
This made Barcelona and their fans arrogant. They believed that they had killed the beast and they were now on top of the world. Something that kinda stuck with them. This cockiness made them think that in the 1994 final in Athens where they were considered heavy favorites that they'd simply torch that casualty heavy Milan side apart, but instead they ended up losing 4-0 in a game where Laudrup was not selected due to foreign player restrictions (Koeman, Stoichkov and Romario were selected instead) and he decided to leave the club and end up with rivals Real Madrid the following summer... Laudrup leaving was essentially the beginning of the end for that Barcelona team, but they regrouped early on. As mentioned above, both Romario and Stoichkov had issues with Cruyff and then developed issues with each other. This was the tragic end of Johann Cruyff's managerial career at Barcelona. He signed Romario to reach the CL final in 1994, lost big because he left out his most influential midfielder due to the foreigner limits and then the team started to be dismembered. Stoichkov said that it's him or Cruyff, he moved to Parma for a year and then returned to Barcelona after Cryuff was gone, while Romario went back to Brazil, had a mini stint at Valencia and then remained in Brazil for the remainder of his very long career.
That early 90s Barcelona was in fact one of the best teams ever and their football was very enjoyable to watch.
Their post-Cruyff team wasn't terrible though and in the first season without him they came up with another CWC final in 1997 which they won vs Paris Saint Germain with new signing Ronaldo scoring the winning goal via the penalty spot. Their manager? An Englishman called Bobby Robson who had decided to take young Jose Mourinho as his assistant manager while Barcelona wanted their long term coaching staff member Carlos Rexach to take over that spot. Robson told Barcelona that he would not make the move if they did not allow him to appoint Jose Mourinho as his assistant. Robson won the award for best manager in Europe that year yet Barcelona promoted him to General Manager (think Director of Football) and appointed Louis Van Gaal to replace his managerial duties. With success, as he had won 2 league titles out of a possible 3 and comparisons between his team and Cruyff's were immediately drawn. Only difference is that the Barcelona Van Gaal was managing had Kluivert, Cocu, the De Boer brothers, Reiziger, Zenden, Rivaldo, Luis Figo, Sonny Anderson, Giovanni, Ciric, Vitor Baia and Mauricio Pellegrino. A long way from having just 3 foreign players.
Some highlights of the Barcelona team in the 1990s, in chronological order:
CWC semi final, first leg. Versus Juventus who have bought Roberto Baggio in the previous summer from Fiorentina
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As Juventus could only beat Barcelona 1-0 in the return leg, here is the CWC Final loss to Man United in 1991. An awful refereeing decision had Barcelona's equalizing goal disallowed.
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In the race for a back to back championship since the Herrera days of 1958-59 and 1959-60, a great win against a formidable opponent at the time who was sitting at 5th place in the league (ended up 7th) in Albacete. The away game in the first round ended 1-1. As you can see, Albacete had their chances before the game blew away.
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The first European Cup win for Barcelona vs mighty Sampdoria.
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Funny thing, after the Albacete game Barcelona had lost their next game to Tenerife away. Tenerife would also host Real Madrid in their final game and Real Madrid was top of the league at the time. Then this happened:
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Barcelona had never won the league title 3 times in a row. No one other than Real Madrid had achieved that. Last match day, Real Madrid top of the table, Barcelona within breathing distance once more. It all falls down to the final game.By now I'm pretty sure there's a Piaza Tenerife somewhere near the Nou Camp because guess what? This happened again!
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Barcelona won two league titles in the final matchday so Cruyff felt that he needed help. He also wanted to reconquer Europe, especially after losing to CSKA Moscow at home before the 1st ever Champions League group stage (which was essentially the quarter final of the tournament). So he brought Romario, who had made a promise that he'd score 30 goals for Barcelona, something that he was doing on a constant basis for PSV. And he did just that.
Some of their great games in the 1993-94 season:
The famous thrashing of Real Madrid by 5-0.
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But that felt like a one off for around a month. Barcelona would barely manage to win some games and struggled a lot, including a 6-3 loss to Zaragoza (3rd place that season)
They rallied after this game winning all games but two which they drew:
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Which enabled this to happen. With Diego Simeone and Davorr Suker being the main threats for Sevilla at the Nou Camp while Super Depor relying on Bebeto to clinch the title in La Coruna.
Well, what do you know? It happened again...
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Yeap, three times in a row, this time literally at the buzzer!
The story ends somewhere here as Laudrup makes the jump for Real Madrid and beats Barcelona with a 5-0 of his own, but the Barcelona journey does not. They are here to stay, even if they lost 5-0 to freaking Santander as well.
Revenge is sweet vs Manchester United:
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Big games vs PSV Eidhoven in the 1995-96 Uefa Cup Quarterfinals. Following the Bosman ruling, the motto became "if you can't beat them, buy them". Ronaldo was out injured at the time, but they did buy him in the summer. And a couple of years later they got Cocu and Zenden from them.
1st leg, home.
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2nd leg, away.
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This is one of the last examples of pure, non-Bosman football. How hard it was for a team that we conceive as gigantic to overcome a team that competes for the Dutch championship (even if this was during Ajax's reign). PSV's only foreigners were Ronaldo, Nilis and Eidur Gudjonhsen. On the other hand, Barcelona had 5 foreigners with Luis Figo, Gheorghe Hagi, Prosinecki, Gabriel Popescu and striker Kodro. I think the rule was changed to 5 foreigners in Spain at that time but only 3 could play, something like that.
First post-Bosman season underway and here's a show of strength from a team that boasts Ronaldo, Stoichkov who has returned, Luis Figo, Luis Enrique, Guardiola, Laurent Blanc, Fernando Couto, Ivan de la Pena and Giovanni in one of those beatings where the opposing goalkeeper is the man of the match.
Foreign player limitations were still in place, but extremely laxed compared to the previous year. They'd keep softening up until the early 2000s.
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Or you can just watch all Ronaldo's goals that season, it pretty much sums up the season.
Next summer Ronaldo was sold, Rivaldo in. Nothing memorable for the Champions League as Shevchenko with Dynamo Kyiv tore them a new one with a 0-4 defeat in the Nou Camp and a 3-0 win in Ukraine and Barcelona only managed to beat Newcastle 1-0 in the group. But they had won the league with ease, their first league title since 1994.
They would repeat in the 1998-99 season.
One of their best games that year:
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The last part of the decade was bittersweet and their season ended with that memorable Rivaldo hatrick vs Valencia with the overhead kick.
But from the 90s, one of the last nice memories was this 2nd stage group game vs Sparta Prague as Barcelona reached the semi finals (and lost to Valencia) which had already deprived them of the Supercup earlier in the season.
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Nobody seems to pay much attention to this era of Barcelona, it's mostly a footnote these days.
The only other club that has had a similar progress was Manchester United but that's completely different and their story is promoted all the time due to Alex Ferguson being the driver of it, unlike Barcelona where it was far different, and this had occurred in a time when there was a vacuum in English football and there was no one to dethrone. As I said in previous posts, Manchester United did not have to dethrone Liverpool, they just had to reach their league titles and surpass it. Splendid accomplishment, but it was not a real race against the top team.
Barcelona had to dethrone Real Madrid, whilst Real Madrid was still in contention, beat them in their own terms, become European Champions and threaten to do it once more and remain in relevance after their best days.
This was threatened in the early 2000s with financial troubles and management issues, but enter Laporta and the signing of Ronaldinho and hope was rekindled. Barcelona was a joy to watch once again, but the results wouldn't come. They brought in Davids to fill in the dirty role of the destroyer (on loan, just before we had signed him) and he had helped Barcelona return to the Champions League. And after that Samuel Eto'o was signed and the new phenom of Barcelona returned.
Several years later, their fanbase grew, becoming a very irritating one and they became a team with some very annoying individuals such as Busquets and Pique, even if they host the greatest player of this generation in Lionel Messi and had other amazing players like Iniesta and Xavi from the academies and had signed a special player in David Villa amongst others.
Until Barcelona's early success with Stoichkov, the Spanish league was simply an earlier version of what we have in Germany now, with Bayern emerging in the 70s and staying up there whilst no one else threatens their #1 status, whilst Real Madrid had done that already since the late 50s.
So pretty much this is the real story of how a club stopped being a Dortmund and became the Barcelona.
10 years of FIF
Nostradamus
Most Passionate Member
