Camp Nou Stadium

The leg­endary Novaya Pole is the largest sta­di­um in Europe and one of the most famous sta­di­ums in the world. The Nou Camp sta­di­um is a cult place for every res­i­dent of Barcelona. It host­ed the great match­es between Barcelona and its worst ene­my, Real Madrid, con­fronta­tions that are root­ed deep in the past. I cre­ate this top­ic in order to tell the sto­ry of the proud Cata­lans, the great Camp Nou sta­di­um and the great Barcelona club

It is called Camp Nou, Nou Camp, Camp Nou, which means New Field in trans­la­tion. The sta­di­um is one of the ten largest sta­di­ums in the world, and ranked among the top five-star sta­di­ums by UEFA. The sta­di­um was built in 1957 and its offi­cial name until 2001 was Esta­di del FC Barcelona (Barcelona Sta­di­um), but it was pop­u­lar­ly called the Camp Nou. Only in 2001 did the board mem­bers vote for the pop­u­lar name.

Let’s turn to his­to­ry camp Nou more. The sta­di­um was built when Francesc Miro-Sans held the pres­i­den­cy of Barcelona. He pro­mot­ed the project of the future Camp Nou due to the small capac­i­ty of the old Camp de Les Corts sta­di­um, and also due to the fact that the main com­peti­tor, Real Madrid, built the San­ti­a­go Bern­abeu. New sta­di­um project Barcelona was entrust­ed to the archi­tect Francesc Mithans. The first stone was laid in March 1953, with an ini­tial bud­get of 67 mil­lion pese­tas. How­ev­er, dur­ing oper­a­tion, unfore­seen changes in the soil caused dif­fi­cul­ties, which increased the con­struc­tion time and cost of the sta­di­um, which reached 288 mil­lion. The club hoped to cov­er con­struc­tion costs by sell­ing the Les Corts sta­di­um site, but the Barcelona munic­i­pal­i­ty delayed the trans­fer of the land by ten years, which led to a tem­po­rary short­age of funds. Fran­cis­co Fran­co for­gave the club’s debt. The open­ing of the sta­di­um took place on Sep­tem­ber 24, 1957. Barcelona have since part­ed ways with their for­mer sta­di­um to play at the Camp Nou, giv­ing thou­sands of fans who could­n’t get enough space at Les Corts the chance to attend their favorite team’s match­es. By the time it opened, Camp Nou was one of the largest and most majes­tic sta­di­ums in the world, with a capac­i­ty of 90,000 seats.

At first it was envis­aged that the sta­di­um would bear the name of the club’s founder Hans Gam­per, but lat­er it was decid­ed to take a more neu­tral one: Esta­dio del Club de Fut­bol Barcelona (FC Barcelona sta­di­um). How­ev­er, the sta­di­um was pop­u­lar­ly known as the Camp Nou, because in rela­tion to Les Corts it was new. Eight years after the open­ing of the sta­di­um, Pres­i­dent Enric Laudet con­vened a meet­ing to dis­cuss the adop­tion of the sta­di­um’s offi­cial name. Among the options were Esta­di Bar?a and Esta­di Camp Nou, but the major­i­ty of votes went to Esta­dio del CF Barcelona. Despite this, the major­i­ty of fans and jour­nal­ists still pre­ferred Camp Nou, and for this rea­son, in 2001, Pres­i­dent Juan Gas­par called a new meet­ing, in which the major­i­ty vot­ed in favor of giv­ing the sta­di­um this name.

At the time of open­ing, Camp Nou had a capac­i­ty of 93,053 spec­ta­tors, although at first it was planned to build a sta­di­um with a capac­i­ty of 150,000, and had a field size of 1?2 meters. Since that time, the Camp Nou has under­gone many ren­o­va­tions. On Sep­tem­ber 23, 1959, the open­ing of arti­fi­cial light­ing took place. The first game with this inno­va­tion was against CSKA Sofia in the sec­ond round of the Cham­pi­ons Cup of the 1959–60 sea­son. In 1971, an indoor sports hall was opened adja­cent to the Camp Nou. It hous­es the bas­ket­ball, hand­ball and vol­ley­ball teams of the club. Hock­ey com­pe­ti­tions are held in the near­by Ice Palace. Across the road from the main field is anoth­er foot­ball sta­di­um, small­er. You can get there through a cov­ered pas­sage hang­ing over the road­way like a bridge. This small sta­di­um, which opened in 1982, is called Mini Esta­di (Span­ish for “small sta­di­um”). In 1975, an elec­tron­ic score­board was added on the sec­ond tier. For the 1982 World Cup in Spain, the sta­di­um was sig­nif­i­cant­ly updat­ed: pri­vate box­es and VIP box­es were added on the sec­ond tier, a press cen­ter was opened on the low­er tier, two score­boards on the north and south stands. The sta­di­um’s capac­i­ty has been increased by 22,150 new seats thanks to the expan­sion of the third tier. After the recon­struc­tion of the Nou Camp began to accom­mo­date 115,000 spec­ta­tors. Sep­tem­ber 24, 1984 opened the Muse­um of Barcelona. In 1994, as required by UEFA reg­u­la­tions, the club reduced the capac­i­ty to 107,000. The lev­el of the field was low­ered by 2.5 meters to increase the capac­i­ty of the low­er rows. In the same sea­son, new press box­es were opened on the third tier and the roof was recon­struct­ed. In the 1995–96 sea­son, the pres­i­den­tial box on the sec­ond tier was expand­ed. The fol­low­ing year, the under­ground park­ing was expand­ed to 800 spaces on two floors. Dur­ing the 1997–98 sea­son, the old score­boards were torn down and replaced with new, more mod­ern mod­els. In 1998, at the ini­tia­tive of UEFA, a new rule was intro­duced, accord­ing to which all seats in sta­di­ums must be seat­ed. “Nou Camp” began to accom­mo­date 98,600 spec­ta­tors. Cur­rent­ly, the sta­di­um has a height of 48 meters and cov­ers an area of ​​55,000 square meters. The evac­u­a­tion of spec­ta­tors is car­ried out with­in 5 min­utes. In 1999, the sta­di­um was giv­en a five-star sta­tus. In Europe, very few are­nas can boast of such an achieve­ment, and in Spain they can be com­plete­ly count­ed on the fin­gers of one hand. In addi­tion to, in fact, the Nou Camp, this is the Olympic Sta­di­um in Barcelona, ​​​​where Espany­ol, Madrid’s Vicente Calderon and the Olympic Sta­di­um in Seville play their match­es.

The sta­di­um can be safe­ly includ­ed in our list of Barcelona attrac­tions. In addi­tion to the foot­ball field, Camp Nou includes an enter­tain­ment cen­ter. And since 1971, it has also been a sports hall where bas­ket­ball, vol­ley­ball and hand­ball teams train. The sta­di­um hous­es the Barcelona Muse­um (Museu Fut­bol Club Barcelona Pres­i­dent Nunes). The muse­um was opened in 1984 and is the most vis­it­ed muse­um in all of Cat­alo­nia. The rich expo­si­tion illus­trates the illus­tri­ous his­to­ry of Barcelona, ​​it is right­ful­ly con­sid­ered the best foot­ball muse­um in the world. The tick­et price includes admis­sion to the sta­di­um and the oppor­tu­ni­ty to ride on the ice rink. Free admis­sion for fan club mem­bers

In addi­tion to foot­ball match­es, the Nou Camp is famous for the vis­its of famous artists, and in 1982, dur­ing the World Cup, the sta­di­um was vis­it­ed by Pope John Paul II, who was accept­ed as a mem­ber of the club under the num­ber 108,000. The Nou Camp host­ed con­certs by Frank Sina­tra, Michael Jack­son, Julio Igle­sias, Pablo Domin­go, Luciano Pavarot­ti and Jose Car­reras. On the Nou Camp There are also fash­ion shows. Appar­ent­ly, a huge num­ber of mar­riages between foot­ball play­ers and top mod­els play a role here. The Nou Camp is also the tra­di­tion­al venue for intro­duc­ing new play­ers to the pub­lic and hon­or­ing the team on the occa­sion of win­ning anoth­er tro­phy. When Barcelona acquired Ronald­in­ho, 30,000 peo­ple came to the sta­di­um to see the pre­sen­ta­tion of the new Blau­grana star.

In Sep­tem­ber 2007, the club accept­ed a project to rebuild the sta­di­um in hon­or of the fifti­eth anniver­sary of its open­ing. An inter­na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tion was orga­nized, dur­ing which archi­tects from all over the world pre­sent­ed their projects in 80 offices. The jury includ­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the club, mem­bers of the pub­lic admin­is­tra­tion and the asso­ci­a­tion of Cata­lan archi­tects. On Sep­tem­ber 18, 2007, the win­ner became known — it was the Eng­lish com­pa­ny Fos­ters and Part­ners, which was known for the con­struc­tion of the new Wem­b­ley Sta­di­um, the Mil­lau Viaduct, the Collsero­la Tow­er, and a new shop­ping cen­ter in New York. The ini­tial bud­get was 250 mil­lion euros. The project mod­el was first pre­sent­ed to the pub­lic before the start of the match between Barcelona and Sevil­la, which took place on Sep­tem­ber 22, 2007. From Mon­day 24 Sep­tem­ber it could be seen on the sec­ond floor of the club’s muse­um. In 2008, it was decid­ed to fin­ish the project in order to start con­struc­tion in 2009 and fin­ish it in 2011 or 2012.

The fol­low­ing improve­ments are planned:

• The sta­di­um’s capac­i­ty should increase from 98,000 to 106,000 spec­ta­tors.
• The VIP zone will have 14,000 more seats.
• A retractable roof will be installed to pro­tect all stands.
• Media space will be dou­bled.
• Mov­able poly­car­bon­ate and glass slabs will be installed on the facade, which will allow cre­at­ing light­ing effects more com­plex than in the Allianz Are­na or Barcelon­a’s Agbar Tow­er.
• Esca­la­tors and ele­va­tors for ordi­nary fans will be built.
• More facil­i­ties for the dis­abled.

Pic­tured is a mod­el of the new Camp Nou

Par­tic­u­lar atten­tion should be paid to the match­es of El Cla­si­co, Barcelona — Real Madrid at the Camp Nou. The con­fronta­tion between these two clubs dates back to 1902. It was then that the new­born Real Madrid played its first match with Barcelona, ​​which by that time was 3 years old. Real Madrid lost that match 3–1. Thus was born the great­est con­fronta­tion between the two clubs. As time went on, the rival­ry between Real Madrid and Barça became more and more sig­nif­i­cant. But the most impor­tant peri­od dur­ing which these two clubs entered a new stage in their rela­tion­ship is the peri­od of Fran­co’s rule. The most fierce resis­tance against him was con­cen­trat­ed pre­cise­ly in Barcelona and it was this ter­ri­to­ry that man­aged to con­tin­ue the fight for the longest time. By the way, the Pres­i­dent of Barcelona led the same mili­tia against the Span­ish dic­ta­tor. Fran­co tried with all his might to sup­press the rebels. He was out­ra­geous there, killing the pop­u­la­tion. It was at this time that the only con­so­la­tion, a ray of light in the bloody mess arranged by Fran­co, was the Barcelona foot­ball club. She per­son­i­fied the unbend­ing spir­it of the Cata­lan peo­ple. Real Madrid was Fran­co’s favorite club at the time. Match­es between Real Madrid and Barça camp Nou, and in Madrid, were now of a pop­u­lar char­ac­ter. Each team now, as it were, defend­ed the hon­or of the entire nation. Each match was a kind of bat­tle for inde­pen­dence. Madrid vs Cat­alo­nia. It was from that peri­od that the con­fronta­tion between Real Madrid and Barcelona began to take on a clear shape, rela­tions between the clubs final­ly dete­ri­o­rat­ed and the time of war began. A war that will nev­er end as long as at least one Madridist or Barcelo­nan is alive. In Fran­co’s time, Real Madrid man­aged to beat Barcelona 11–1 in the Copa del Rey, but the under­cur­rents that sur­round­ed Span­ish foot­ball were too strong in those days. In that dis­tant year, 1943, before the match, the Span­ish Min­is­ter of Sports, who was one of the peo­ple clos­est to Fran­co, entered the lock­er room of Barça and promised to shoot the play­ers of the Cata­lan club if Real Madrid did not go fur­ther.

On May 28, 1995, Mikael Lau­drup arrived at the Nou Camp. One of the lead­ers of “Barcelona” moved into the camp of the most hat­ed team for any cool. The sta­di­um met the Dane as it should be: posters with the inscrip­tions “Judas!” were hung out in the stands. and “Don’t you dare step into our sta­di­um!”. Lau­drup could not with­stand the psy­cho­log­i­cal attack and asked for a replace­ment

The sec­ond defec­tor was Luis Enrique, who fol­lowed in the direc­tion of “Real” — “Barcelona”. Real Madrid fans tried to cre­ate a sem­blance of a Nou Camp against Luis, but failed. But both of these trans­fers are noth­ing com­pared to the res­o­nance that caused the trans­fer of Luis Figo from Barcelona to Real Madrid. A huge scan­dal erupt­ed, as a result of which the clubs were even forced to sign an agree­ment on “not poach­ing each oth­er’s play­ers.” What hap­pened dur­ing Figo’s first El Cla­si­co at Camp Nou is hard to describe. In the course were any items. Start­ing from pens and mobile phones, end­ing with the wig of your neigh­bor in the place and your own under­wear. And of course, we saw the flight of the famous pig’s head, which, how­ev­er, with all its desire, did not reach the goal. Figo felt on his own skin what hell is. There were times when he could­n’t just go take a cor­ner and had to wait sev­er­al min­utes for the fans to cool down a bit. Those episodes for­ev­er entered the his­to­ry of the bat­tle of these two clubs at the Camp Nou

Barcelona for the Cata­lans is more than a club, which is dis­played on one of the stands of the Camp Nou