{"id":67120,"date":"2026-08-07T10:22:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T10:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/67120\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T10:22:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T10:22:09","slug":"after-24-years-an-exceptional-title-takes-barcelona-back-to-memories-of-the-last-century","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/67120\/","title":{"rendered":"After 24 years: an exceptional title takes Barcelona back to memories of the last century"},"content":{"rendered":"

Barcelona are gearing up for a rare experience during their camp for the new 2026-2027 season. For the first time in 24 years, they will take part in a triangular tournament, an event that recalls one of the most notable chapters in the history of the Catalan side’s pre-season preparations.\n<\/p>\n

The Italian city of Udine hosts the first edition of the Friuli Venezia Giulia Cup on Saturday, featuring Barcelona, Italy’s Udinese and England’s Nottingham Forest. The format breaks from the traditional friendly.\n<\/p>\n

Two matches of 45 minutes each make up the tournament, with Barcelona facing Nottingham Forest and Udinese in turn. The Catalan side have not experienced anything like it for more than two decades.\n<\/p>\n

This type of tournament may have faded in recent years, but Barcelona boast a long history with them. Triangulars were an essential part of the summer preparation programme in past decades.\n<\/p>\n

Last participation dates back to 2002<\/p>\n

Barcelona last appeared in a triangular during preparation for the 2002-2003 season, taking part in a tournament held in the Dutch city of Amsterdam alongside Ajax and Italy’s Parma.\n<\/p>\n

Back then the matches ran to a different format, with each lasting 90 minutes and played on separate days, according to Barcelona’s official website<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

Louis van Gaal’s side opened their campaign with a 4-2 win over Parma. New signing Juan Roman Riquelme stole the show, scoring twice.\n<\/p>\n

Two days later, Barcelona lost to an Ajax side led by the young star Rafael van der Vaart.\n<\/p>\n

A tournament honouring Urruti and a summer tradition<\/p>\n

A year earlier, in June 2001, Barcelona organised a special triangular to honour the late goalkeeper Francisco Javier Gonzalez Urrutikoetxea, known as “Urruti”.\n<\/p>\n

The club invited Espanyol and Real Sociedad to take part at the “Mini Estadi”, the ground that hosted Barcelona’s reserve team.\n<\/p>\n

Three matches made up the tournament, each lasting 30 minutes, between the three teams. Barcelona claimed the title after drawing with Real Sociedad, then beating Espanyol 1-0 in a friendly derby.\n<\/p>\n

Triangular tournaments flourished in the 1990s, becoming a preferred means for European clubs to prepare for the new season.\n<\/p>\n

Between 1990 and 2000, Barcelona took part in seven of them, held in various cities: Oviedo, Marbella, Tenerife, Salamanca, Florence, Amsterdam and Barcelona, all as part of the pre-season programme.\n<\/p>\n

The beginning dates back to 1947<\/p>\n

It all started in June 1947, when Barcelona took part in a tournament held in Palma de Mallorca.\n<\/p>\n

The “Es Forti” stadium, then home to Real Mallorca, hosted the fixtures. Opened in 1945, it remained the club’s official stadium until 1999.\n<\/p>\n

Barcelona won the title after beating Mallorca 3-0 in the first match, then thrashing Atletico Madrid 6-0 in the second.\n<\/p>\n

Striker Manuel Badenes lit up the tournament, topping the scorers’ list with six goals in just two matches and leading Barcelona to their first triangular title.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Barcelona are gearing up for a rare experience during their camp for the new 2026-2027 season. For the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67121,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[92,23952,1140,26638,20696,26639],"class_list":["post-67120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-barcelona","tag-barcelona","tag-club-friendlies","tag-nottingham-forest","tag-nottingham-forest-vs-barcelona","tag-udinese","tag-udinese-vs-barcelona"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67120\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}