Who is Pep Guardiola?

Josep Pep Guardiola I Sala was born in the year 1971 on January 18^th. He is a well renowned Spanish football manager and also a former football player. During his tenure as a player, Guardiola played in the defensive midfielder where he spent the majority of his playing career with the Barcelona team.

Pep was part of Johan Cruffy’s dream team that helped FC Barcelona win Barcelona’s first ever European Cup. Pep also went ahead to play for Brescia and Roma in Italy: Al-Ahli in Qatar; and for Dorados de Sinaloa in Mexico as he attended managing school.

During his tenure as a football professional in Italy, he served a whole four month ban after testing positive in a drug tests, however on appeal he was cleared on any wrong doing in the year 2009 before the Courts of Justice of the Italian Football Federation as well as the Federal Anti-Doping Courts of the Italian Olympic Committee.

As an international football player, he played for Spain and also in friendly matches for Catalonia. When he retired as a player, Guardiola started coaching FC Barcelona B. and on 8^th May 2008, Pep was named as the head coach for FC Barcelona. 

 On the 5^th June day of 2008,Pep signed his contract and started his first season as FC Barcelona’s manager, he led Barca into winning the treble of La Liga, the Copa del Rey, and the Champions League. This wins made Pep became the youngest UEFA Champions League-winning manager ever.

The season that followed saw Pepe help Barca win the Supercopa de España, the UEFA Super Cup, and the FIFA Club World Cup, bringing the manager's tally to the maximum of six trophies in six competitions in one year, thus completing six trophies sextuple in two seasons.

On the 8^th of September, in the year 2011, Pep was awarded the Catalan parliament's Gold Medal, the highest honour. On January 9^th the year 2012, Pep was awarded the FIFA World Coach of the year for Men’s Football award.

He won this award with 42% of the votes beating Sir Alex Ferguson Manchester United’s manager to second place where he received 16% and the third place was taken by Jose Mourinho who coaches Real Madrid a where he gathered 12% vote. 

On June 30^th the year 2012, Pep quit as Barca’s manager where he left after achieving a record 14 titles in a record four years being the clubs head coach. 

Pep was born in Santpedor, Barcelona, Catalonia, where he joined the football junior league Masia at the age of 13 years where he rose through the ranks at the youth academy of Barcelona for a record six years.

Barcelona FC

Football Club Barcelona which is also known as Barcelona not forgetting Barca. This is a professional football club that is based in the city of Barcelona, Catalonia in Spain. This football club was founded in the year 1899.

A group of English, Swiss and Catalan footballers who were led by a Joan Gamper, Ever since then, Barcelona has become a symbol of Catalan culture and also Catalanism and its no wonder the motto  "Més que un club" (More than a club), was founded.

Barcelona FC’s official anthem is known as the "Més que un club" (More than a club). Barcelona is a unique football club that ids owned and run by supporters. Barcelona doubles up as the second richest club in terms of revenue where it operates an annual turnover of 398 million pounds.

FC Barcelona is a club that holds a long standing rivalry with FC Real Madrid and when the two teams meet on the playing field, the matches are referred to "El Clásico". FC Barcelona are the current Copa del Rey Champions and they have won a record 21 La Liga titles, 26 Copa del Rey, 10 Supercopa de Espana  , 3 Copa Eva Duarte and 2 Copa de la Liga trophies.

Barcelona is the record holder for the latter four competitions and for the international scene, Barcelona has won a record four UEFA Champions league, a record four UEFA Cup Winners' Cup, four UEFA Super Cup, a record three Inter-Cities Fairs Cup and a record two FIFA Club World Cup trophies. 

FC Barcelona doubles up as the only European club that has ever played the continental football every season since the year1955. FC Barcelona is also one of three clubs that have never been relegated from La Liga the rest being Real Madrid and Athletic Bilbao.

In the year2009, FC Barcelona became the very first Spanish club to ever win six out of six competitions in a single year! This made the club win a sextuple that compromised of the treble as well as the Spanish Super Cup, UEFA Cup as well as FIFA World Cup. 

During the date22nd of October the year1899, a gent by the name Hans Kamper placed an advertisement in Los Deportes declaring his wish to form a football club; he was bombarded with a positive result which led to a meeting at the Gimnasio Solé on 29 November. 

A record eleven players attended and from then on FC Barcelona had their very successful start in regional as well as national cups, Barcelona started competing in the Campionat de Catalunya and the Copa del Rey.

Back in the year 1902, Barcelona was able to win its first ever trophy, the Copa Macaya, and participated in the first Copa del Rey, losing 1–2 to Bizcaya in the final.In the year 1908,Kamper who was to be known as Joan Gamper became FC Barcelona’s club president. 

And during his 25 years reign as club president, Joan ensured that FC Barcelona go to acquire its very own stadium thus helping the club to start generating a stable income. 

FC Valencia

Valencia club is a Spanish club also known as Valencia CF, Valencia and even Los Che, this football club is located in Valencia city. FC Valencia is a club that is big on the La Liga and it’s actually has a history as being one of the most successful and biggest clubs in Spanish football and European football.

 

As up to today, Valencia have won a record six La Liga tittles, seven Copa del Rey trophies, two Fairs Cups, UEFA Cup, UEFA Cup winner’s Cup and also two UEFA super cups. Its also on record that this football club has successfully reached two UEFA champions league final and in a row!

Valencia is a football club that was a member of the G-14 group of leading European football clubs. In a nutshell Valencia has reached a total of seven major European finals where they have won four of them. 

In the La Liga table, FC Valencia takes up the third position tailing Real Madrid and FC Barcelona. When it comes to continental titles, Valencia is also placed as the third-most successful behind the two making these three Spanish clubs is the only Spanish clubs to have won five or more continental trophies. 

 Valencia FC is a football club that was founded in the year 1919 and have played their home games in their 55,000 Seater stadium known as Mestalla, since the year 1923. But in the year 2013, the club is scheduled to move into their new 75,000 seater Nou Mestalla that is located in the north-west of the city of Valencia.

In the whole of Spain, Valencia is slated as the third most supported football club in Spain and it serves as one of the biggest clubs in the world in terms of number of associates who are registered paying supporters and the club also boasts of more than 50,000 season ticket holders and another 20,00+ season ticket holders who are on the waiting list who will be easily accommodated  in their new 75,000 seater stadium.

FC Valencia History

Valencia CF moved into the Mestalla stadium in the year 1923 after having played their home matched at the Algiros ground since the date 7^th December 1919. The very first match at Mestalla pitted the home side against Castellon Castalia which ended as a nil, nil draw.

Yet in another match which was played the day after, Valencia won against the same opposition 1-0. In the year 1923, Valencia won the Regional Championship and the club was eligible to play in the domestic Copa del Rey cup competition for the very first time in the clubs history. 

In the 1960’s, FC Valencia had its first European success in the form of the Inter cities fairs cup which served as the forerunner to the UEFA Cup. In the 1961-62 seasons, Valencia was able to beat FC Barcelona in the final. 

 In the season played in 1962-63 edition of the Inter-cities Fairs Cup final FC Valencia won against the Croatian club known as Dinamo Zagreb.

La Liga in time

Spanish are sport lovers and in the second half of the 20^th century this love has generally been bestowed upon football. The First division of the Liga Nacional de Fútbol Profesional (LFP), commonly known as La Liga in the English speaking world is the top professional association football division of the Spanish football league system.

La Liga has over 85 years of rich history, founded in the April of 1927 by José María Acha a director at Arenas Club De Getxo with the objective to develop a national football league in Spain. Initially it compromised of ten teams some of which were Barcelona, Real Madrid, Athletic Bilbao, Real Sociedad, Arenas Club de Getxo, Real Union, Atletico Madrid and Espanyol.

Today La Liga is contested by 20 teams with the three lowest teams relegated to the Segunda Division and replaced by the top three teams of that division. This process helps in giving different clubs a chance to contest in the finest football league of the world. Real Madrid, Barcelona, and Athletic Bilbao, are the only three founding clubs of the league that have never been relegated from the Primera Division.

The La Liga constitutes of clubs that host some of the best football players from all over the world. Two clubs Real Madrid and Barcelona have dominated La Liga since the 1950’s with Real Madrid winning the title a record of 32 times and Barcelona 21 times. However in the last two decades La Liga has seen other champions like Atlético Madrid, Athletic Bilbao, Valencia,  Sevilla, Deportivo, Real Betis and Sociedad. It is evident that the league has matured and is opening up in terms of competition and the days of blank domination by Real Madrid and Barcelona are coming to an end as both the clubs now face considerable competition from other clubs.

Being the top two teams of the league, the Barcelona Club and Real Madrid have die heart fans who call the clash of these two titans as El Clasico. A term that was originally used only to refer to competitions that were held in the Spanish Championship El Clasicso today has been generalized to include every single match between these two giants and rightly so because other than the UEFA Champions League Final, the matches between these two clubs are the most watched matches.

In terms of performance and La Liga championship title winnings the top 5 clubs of La Liga are Real Madrid with 32 title wins, Barcelona 21 wins, Atletico Madrid 9 Wins, Athletic Bilbao 8 Wins and Valencia 6 title wins. Additionally it is important to mention over here that according to the International Federation of Football History & Statistics (IFFHS) yearly rankings La Liga is the best league in the world right now and according to UEFA’s League Coefficient the strongest league in Europe for the past 5 years.