{"id":943965,"date":"2026-05-07T14:27:21","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T14:27:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/943965\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T14:27:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T14:27:21","slug":"for-the-first-time-in-66-years-barcelona-is-returning-to-birmingham-this-summer-for-a-massive-pre-season-clash-against-the-blues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/943965\/","title":{"rendered":"For the first time in 66 years, Barcelona is returning to Birmingham this summer for a massive pre-season clash against the Blues"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"BARCELONA,<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto by Alex Caparros, Getty Images<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The last time Birmingham City<\/strong> played FC Barcelona <\/strong>was in the 1960 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup final, when the European giants thrashed the Blues 4-1 at the Camp Nou. That year, Bar\u00e7a won their second consecutive Spanish league title, while Birmingham had just scraped clear of the relegation zone\u2026<\/p>\n

You can probably expect a similar match-up between these two legendary teams (Birmingham City was founded 24 years before Barcelona) again this summer, when the La Liga champions elect head to St. Andrew\u2019s to face the mid-table Championship side for pre-season<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

An exact date for the fixture has yet to be confirmed, but we expect it to be around early August. Hansi Flick\u2019s teams arrive at England\u2019s national training centre, St George\u2019s Park in Burton Upon Trent, where players and coaching staff will set up base for approximately two weeks from July 27<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"CAMBRIDGE,Photo by Sally Rawlins, Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Around this time, Barcelona will also play two further friendlies, one in Kenya and another in Morocco, against \u201ca major European opponent.\u201d These fixtures have been set up to account for the lack of a proper pre-season tour this summer, thanks to the World Cup held in Canada, Mexico and the United States<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

A lot of the squad is expected to be on holiday following the tournament (June 11 \u2013 July 19), including many of its mega-stars\u2014like Spain\u2019s Lamine Yamal, England\u2019s Marcus Rashford and the Netherlands\u2019 Frenkie de Jong\u2014so don\u2019t expect many famous faces to touchdown in the Second City, but there\u2019ll still be plenty of talent on show<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Barcelona can secure the La Liga title against arch-rivals Real Madrid on Sunday, May 10, 2026. While Birmingham City has already wrapped up its season with a 1-1 draw<\/strong> against Portsmouth on Saturday, May 3, securing a top-ten finish\u2014no further pre-season fixtures have been announced yet by the Blues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo by Alex Caparros, Getty Images The last time Birmingham City played FC Barcelona was in the 1960…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":943966,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7820],"tags":[855,748,393,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-943965","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-birmingham","8":"tag-birmingham","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116533765914028788","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=943965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/943966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=943965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=943965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=943965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}