25 years since the first blaugrana mosaic

On 7 March 1992 FC Barcelona and Real Madrid drew 1-1 at Camp Nou, the goals coming from Ronald Koeman for the blaugranes and from Fernando Hierro for the visitors. Johan Cruyff’s team picked up a point on their way to the league title that season but that is not the primary reason that the game is remembered. It was on that day in March that the very first fans’ mosaic was seen at the stadium, the word ‘Barça spelt out by more than 20,000 fans at the North Goal end of the ground. Since then another 69 have seen the light of day, the majority at Camp Nou but others at European finals at stadiums such as Wembley, the Stade de France or the Olympic Stadium in Rome.

The idea for the very first mosaic came from the Almogàvers supporters’ group. In the years that followed, other groups from the ‘Grada Jove’ became involved. In particular, Jordi Sant, Barça member and founder of the Almogàvers, who took his inspiration from the tifosi in Italian football who had made the idea popular among fans. Nevertheless, Barça were the first club in Europe to take the mosaic idea to another level with regards to size, the first examples dwarfing the smaller examples that were common in Italy at the time.

Form the season 1999/00 the Club assumed the responsibility of organising the mosaics and ever since then it has become one of the world leaders in this particular show of support for FC Barcelona. Of the 70 mosaics that have been used, 11 have come in finals, six of those in the Champions League, of which Barça have won five. 25 have come against Real Madrid in the ‘Clásico’  and the mosaic has covered the entire Camp Nou stadium on 24 occasions. The most recent came against Barça’s biggest rivals on 3 December of last year when the cry of encouragement in Catalan ‘Força Barça’ was unveiled.