{"id":116054,"date":"2026-08-16T11:55:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-16T11:55:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/116054\/"},"modified":"2026-08-16T11:55:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-16T11:55:12","slug":"basel-a-city-of-great-european-memories-for-barca-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/116054\/","title":{"rendered":"Basel, a city of great European memories for Bar\u00e7a"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>FC Barcelona will return to play in Basel on 16 August (4.30pm CEST), a city that holds a special place in the club\u2019s European history. Over the decades, the blaugrana have played five official matches there, some of which have been forever etched in the memories of Bar\u00e7a fans.<\/p>\n<p>Early visits<\/p>\n<p>The first came on 26 November 1957, when St. Jakob Stadium hosted the play-off in the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup semi-final between Bar\u00e7a and Birmingham City. The blaugrana won 2-1 to book their place in the final of the competition.<\/p>\n<p>A year later, on 12 November 1958, Basel once again provided the European stage for Bar\u00e7a. On that occasion, the culers beat a Basel city representative side 2-1 in the first leg of the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup round of 32.<\/p>\n<p>The third visit was also for a European final, although with a very different outcome. On 21 May 1969, Bar\u00e7a lost 3-2 to Slovan Bratislava in the European Cup Winners\u2019 Cup final, also played at St. Jakob.<\/p>\n<p>The setting for a first major European title<\/p>\n<p>But if there is one night that has made Basel a particularly memorable city for Bar\u00e7a fans, it is 16 May 1979. That day, Bar\u00e7a won their first European Cup Winners\u2019 Cup by beating Fortuna D\u00fcsseldorf 4-3 after extra time. In a thrilling final full of twists and turns, goals from Tente S\u00e1nchez, Juan Manuel Asensi, Carles Rexach and Hans Krankl handed the blaugrana a European trophy that defined an era and remains one of the great milestones in the club\u2019s history.<\/p>\n<p>                <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1786881312_274_19790516_AFCB-3-FN-02396_05_.jpg\" alt=\"19790516_AFCB-3-FN-02396_05_\" class=\"embeddable-photo__image\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The most recent visit, a five-goal win<\/p>\n<p>The most recent game in Basel came much later. On 22 October 2008, Pep Guardiola\u2019s side thrashed FC Basel 5-0 in the Champions League group stage. Leo Messi opened the scoring, Sergio Busquets scored his first goal for the first team, Bojan Krki\u0107 struck twice and Xavi Hern\u00e1ndez completed the rout in one of the blaugrana\u2019s most complete performances of that group stage.<\/p>\n<p>                <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1786881312_51_FCBasel-FCBarcelona0-5J03FasedeGrupsUEFAChampionsLeague20082009_pic_basel-fcb.jpg\" alt=\"FCBasel-FCBarcelona0-5J03FasedeGrupsUEFAChampionsLeague20082009_pic_basel-fcb\" class=\"embeddable-photo__image\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Now, almost 18 years after their last visit, Bar\u00e7a will once again take to the pitch at St. Jakob-Stadion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FC Barcelona will return to play in Basel on 16 August (4.30pm CEST), a city that holds a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116055,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[8],"tags":[77,894],"class_list":["post-116054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basel","tag-basel","tag-text"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/117105061081931024","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116054","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=116054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}