When Barça crossed the Strait of Gibraltar to play League games

So close and so far, the African continent did not receive Barça until that May 1932, when a group of French businessmen presented an offer to the Blaugrana board to play three friendlies in Orà and Algiers. Algeria was then controlled by the French and, in fact, one of the matches organized would be against Sete, then one of the leading clubs in the French league. The little tour had to take place at the end of a League where Barça finished third, behind Madrid, the champion, and Athletic. The agreed dates, however, coincided with the first qualifying rounds of the Copa de la República. It was not long ago that the Cup no longer honored any king, in republican Spain. Barça, which needed money at a time of certain social instability – that season the club had up to three presidents – agreed with coach Jack Greenwell to split the squad in two: the starters would play the Cup and the substitutes would leave by boat in Algeria

On May 5, Barça beat Asmo, a club from the city of Orà, 0-10 with six goals from Miquel Gual. The second game was played on May 8 in Algiers against Gallia Sports, a French team where no Arabs played. Barça scored again, 1-11 with a new display from Gual, author of seven goals. The third match, again in Algiers, would be against a selection of the best local players, who could not stop the Catalan game, with Barça winning 1-5. The tour’s crowd success led local businessmen to offer Barça an extension to their break to play against Mogreb de Tetouan, a Moroccan club they lost 3-0, and France’s Sete, who were also a tour This would be the only Blaugrana defeat, by 1-0. At the end of May, Barça would play one last match in the city of Mostaganem, when it accepted the proposal of a local millionaire to play a friendly on his private ground against the city’s best players. Those were other times. The Blaugrana first team, meanwhile, would reach the final of the Cup, losing 1-0 against Athletic Bilbao.

Two official parties

Barça would not return to Africa until May 6, 1951, when it was their turn to face Atlético de Tetuan in the Cup, a club that would achieve promotion to the Spanish First Division that same year. In 1913 Tetuan became part of the Spanish protectorate of Morocco. France, which was unable to control a politically unstable area, since the Moroccans did not want to depend on any European state, ceded northern Morocco to Spain, which saw an opportunity to forget having lost the few remnants of its Empire a few years earlier, with the defeats of Cuba and the Philippines. In 1933 some of the Spanish military sent to Tetuan created a football club. The initiative came from a former Atlético de Madrid player, Fernando Fuertes de Villavicencio, who proposed using the name and shirt of his former team. But some of his comrades in arms, who were Basques, reminded him that if Atlético existed it was because it had been founded by Basques. So the shield and the name of the new club in Tetuan was inspired by Athletic Bilbao.

Athletic of Tetuan became the best team of the protectorate. In fact, a lot of Spanish clubs were founded in the area, which were federated in the North African Spanish Federation. When the Francoists won the war, the club’s name changed from Athletic, which sounded like it was English, to Athletic Club of Tetouan. The team entered directly into the Second Division of the Spanish championship alongside Ceuta Sport and the team Escuela Hispano Árabe de Tangier. Despite being relegated in 1943, it would be the team from Tetuan who would soar, achieving the historic promotion to Primera in 1951, the same year that Barça received the Cup and lost by 1 to 3. Barça went there arriving after a long plane ride, stopping in Valencia to put on more gas. When they arrived in Tetuan, they were greeted by a crowd, where the Catalans who were doing military service stood out. Kubala would be the big star of the team trained by Ferdinand Daucik, who did not suffer to prevail against a team that he would visit again a year later on the last day of the 1951/52 season. At that time, Barça were already league champions and Atlético had already been relegated. The Catalan team would score 2-5. Barça, by the way, went so far as to submit an offer to sign local striker Mohamed Lahcen, known as Chicha, as they liked his game. But the local club did not want to sell him.

Return to Africa

With the independence of Morocco in 1956, the Spanish players and managers of Club Atlético de Tetouan mostly moved to the neighboring city of Ceuta and merged with the Sociedad Esportiva Ceuta. The newly founded club, Club Atlètic de Ceuta, inherited the federative rights of Club Atlètic de Tetuan and its place in the Spanish Second Division. In Tetouan, another Atlético de Tetouan would be founded that would unite with a previous club from the 1920s, this one made up entirely of Moroccan players. Over the years, this entity has become known as Mogreb Atlètic Tetuan, league champion in 2012 and 2014.

Barça would return to Africa in 1961 to play in Egypt against Al-Ahly and in 1969 to play in the Mohamed V tournament, in 1969, against São Paulo and Bayern. In 1974 the WAC was visited for a friendly and in 2012 another match was played there. In recent years, he has played Cup matches against Ceuta and Melilla, as well as the Spanish Super Cup organized in Tangier in 2018.