{"id":113031,"date":"2026-08-08T09:00:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T09:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/113031\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T09:00:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T09:00:10","slug":"officially-barcelona-reveal-their-new-opponent-before-facing-al-ahly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/113031\/","title":{"rendered":"Officially: Barcelona reveal their new opponent before facing Al-Ahly"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Barcelona have announced a new friendly as part of their preparations for the upcoming 2026-2027 season.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fcbarcelona.com\/en\/football\/first-team\/news\/4556111\/fc-barcelona-to-play-friendly-in-basel?utm_source=threads&amp;utm_medium=fcbarcelona&amp;utm_campaign=fb83f00a-6c7a-4720-85b7-fe42a9d3918f\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">According to Barcelona&#8217;s official website<\/a>, Hansi Flick&#8217;s side will visit Basel in Switzerland on Sunday 16 August at 4:30pm Central European Summer Time. The game takes place at St. Jakob-Park, one of the country&#8217;s most prominent football stadiums.<\/p>\n<p>The Basel match will be the team&#8217;s third fixture of pre-season, following the friendly against Birmingham City and the triangular tournament in Udine against Nottingham Forest and Udinese.<\/p>\n<p>One final test awaits before the official start of the season. The Joan Gamper Trophy against Egypt&#8217;s Al Ahly doubles as the team&#8217;s official presentation to their supporters at their own stadium.<\/p>\n<p>Previous encounters<\/p>\n<p>Barcelona and Basel have met twice in official competitions, both in the group stage of the Champions League during the 2008-2009 season.<\/p>\n<p>The Catalan side thumped their hosts 5-0 at St. Jakob-Park, with Lionel Messi, Sergio Busquets, Xavi Hernandez and a Bojan Krkic double doing the damage. The return at the Camp Nou finished 1-1, Messi scoring again.<\/p>\n<p>Long before those meetings, Barcelona played twice in the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup during the 1958-1960 competition, against a team representing the city of Basel.<\/p>\n<p>Both went their way. They won 2-1 away, then wrapped things up with a 5-2 result in the return.<\/p>\n<p>A stadium that holds special memories<\/p>\n<p>Basel holds a special place in Barcelona&#8217;s history. The city hosted the European Cup Winners&#8217; Cup final on 16 May 1979, where the Catalans beat Fortuna Dusseldorf 4-3 in an unforgettable encounter that stretched into extra time.<\/p>\n<p>That win delivered Barcelona&#8217;s first major European title. It also drew unprecedented backing, with around 30,000 fans travelling to Switzerland, the first massive away trip by Barcelona supporters to attend a European final.<\/p>\n<p>More than four decades on, Barcelona return to the city forever linked to one of the most unforgettable chapters in the club&#8217;s history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Barcelona have announced a new friendly as part of their preparations for the upcoming 2026-2027 season. According to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113032,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[8],"tags":[55100,15383,77,54909],"class_list":["post-113031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basel","tag-al-ahly-sc","tag-barcelona","tag-basel","tag-laliga"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/117059074399836145","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113031\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}