Football In Spain
Football is the most popular sport in Spain. The Royal Spanish Football Federation (Real Federación Española de Fútbol) is the national governing body and it organises La Liga, the Copa del Rey and the Spain national football team, current champion of the FIFA World Cup. Modern football was introduced to Spain in the late 19th century by a combination of mostly British immigrant workers, visiting sailors and Spanish students coming from Britain.
The oldest football club in Spain is Recreativo de Huelva, formed on December 23, 1889 by Dr. Mackay and British workers employed by the Rio Tinto Company. Although Gimnàstic de Tarragona was formed in 1886 and Sevilla FC in 1890, the clubs did not form an actual football team until 1914 and 1905, respectively. The first official football game played in Spain took place in Seville on March 8, 1890 at the Tablada Hippodrome. Recreativo de Huelva played against Sevilla FC, a team made up of workers from the Seville Water Works. With the exception of two Spanish players on the Huelva team, all the players on both teams were British. This is the reason why the team is called Sevilla FC (football club) and not Sevilla CF (club de fútbol, in Spanish correct way). The Seville team won 2-0.
In the Basque Country during the early 1890s, British shipyard workers and miners formed the Bilbao Football Club and Basque students returning from Britain founded the Athletic Club in 1898. This early British influence was reflected in the use of English names such as Recreation Club, Athletic Club and Football Club.
Barcelona and Real Madrid are the most successful Spanish clubs, in both the national league and continental competitions. They have won a combined 13 European Cups/Champions League titles and were runners-up 3 times each. Real Madrid is the most successful in Europe, having won it a record 9 times and the UEFA Cup twice, while FC Barcelona was the only team to achieve a Sextuple, in the year 2009. In La Liga's 80-year history (sans the 3 seasons that the league was suspended due to the civil war), Barça and Real Madrid have won 51 titles between them. Over the years, Spanish clubs have won the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup 7 times and UEFA Europa League 6 times.
Read more about Football In Spain: Copa Del Rey, La Selección, La Liga
Famous quotes containing the words football and/or spain:
“People stress the violence. That’s the smallest part of it. Football is brutal only from a distance. In the middle of it there’s a calm, a tranquility. The players accept pain. There’s a sense of order even at the end of a running play with bodies stewn everywhere. When the systems interlock, there’s a satisfaction to the game that can’t be duplicated. There’s a harmony.”
—Don Delillo (b. 1926)
“England and France, Spain and Portugal, Gold Coast and Slave Coast, all front on this private sea; but no bark from them has ventured out of sight of land, though it is without doubt the direct way to India.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)