History and aesthetics of the Gamper Trophy The symbol of Barcelona
After winning the Como Cup, another prestigious friendly for Como: on Sunday, August 10 at 9 PM, they will face Barcelona in the 2025 edition of the Gamper Trophy. Thus continues Mirwan Suwarso’s club's climb toward the elite of European football: the partnership with adidas that for the 2025/26 season brought the reflections of Lake Como onto the new Home jersey, a prestigious international tournament as part of their luxury football strategy, and now the official invitation from Barcelona for the match that unofficially kicks off the blaugrana season.
The Gamper Trophy has always been the catwalk that Barcelona uses to introduce itself to its fans at the start of a new season. One last warm-up lap before facing official commitments in La Liga, the Champions League, and the Copa del Rey. A gala event that cannot be compared to any tour in Asia or the United States where Barcelona showcases its greatness to the world. But above all, a tribute to the man who founded the club.
History
But who was this Joan Gamper? Officially registered as Hans-Max Gamper-Haessig, he was a Swiss merchant born in 1877 in Winterthur, near Zurich. He changed his name to Juan Gamper after moving to Barcelona for work; he had found a job as an accountant at the local transport company. On October 22, 1899, he published an ad in the newspaper Los Deportes looking for football enthusiasts like himself and proposing to organize matches. The early equivalent of today’s WhatsApp chats used to find a tenth man for a five-a-side, but with a historic impact matched by few, as it marked the earliest beginnings of what we now know as Futbol Club Barcelona.
Gamper was a player in that very first version of Barça; he was on the field on November 29, 1899 when the first match was played. He later became president on five different occasions between 1908 and 1925. He also acted as a sporting director avant la lettre, as when professionalism was introduced in Spanish football, he was the one who hired the first English coaches and, above all, bought the players who wrote the club’s first pages of history, such as goalkeeper Ricardo Zamora, after whom the La Liga award for best goalkeeper, based on goals conceded per match played, is named today.
Following a diplomatic incident during the dictatorship of General Miguel Primo de Rivera, when Barcelona fans booed the Spanish anthem during a friendly match, Gamper was forced into exile and returned to Switzerland, where he committed suicide in 1930 after the financial crash of the previous year had wiped out all his wealth. In 1957, Barcelona considered naming their new stadium after him, the one we now know as Camp Nou, but for political reasons, they only officially reconnected with Gamper in 1966 by naming a trophy after him.
The format
Initially, the Gamper Trophy was structured as a four-team tournament, with two semifinals and a final. The first teams invited were Anderlecht, Nantes, and Cologne, with the Germans facing Barcelona in the final and losing 3-1. The single-match format was introduced in 1997 and has not been changed since. To date, 58 editions have been played, and Barcelona has won 46. The only team besides the blaugrana to have won more than one edition of the Gamper Trophy is Cologne (2). Eleven teams have inscribed their names at least once on the honors list: Sampdoria, Juventus, Manchester City, Borussia Monchengladbach, Internacional, Újpest, Mechelen, Monaco, Porto, Tenerife, and Valencia. Since 2021, a women’s version of the Gamper Trophy has also been held, and in the four editions played so far, Barcelona Femení has always won.
The venue
The Gamper, as mentioned, has become over the years Barcelona’s runway to reintroduce itself to the Camp Nou crowd, but the trophy has not always been played at the blaugrana’s home ground. The 2025 edition, for example, will take place at the Johan Cruijff Stadium because major renovation work at the stadium has not yet been completed. This will be the second edition held at this venue, used by the women’s and men’s B teams. The previous one was in 2021, during the COVID-19 lockdown, when Barcelona faced Juventus.
Another venue is, of course, the Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys, which Barcelona is using while waiting to return to Camp Nou. This stadium hosted the 2023 and 2024 editions, as well as those in 1990 and 1996. In fact, the last edition played at Camp Nou was in 2022, when Barcelona defeated Mexico’s Pumas UNAM.
A small but necessary note: the selection of opponents is random and entirely at the discretion of the club. Sometimes there are special reasons, like in 2017 when Chapecoense was invited just months after the plane crash that involved the team the previous November, killing 71 people. Otherwise, the final decision rests with the club’s management, who select the opponent based on their motivations. Como, for example, will be the ninth Italian team to take part in the tournament after Milan, Brescia, Sampdoria, Parma, Inter, Juventus, Roma, and Napoli.
The trophy
As mentioned, the Gamper is a friendly match that awards a trophy: the Trofeu Joan Gamper, a cup whose shape has never changed over the years, unlike its detailing. For instance, the base was once made of faux marble with white veins on a black background, while today it’s solid black. The gold lettering applied to the base has also changed. Today it features all caps “TROFEU JOAN GAMPER”, while in the past, it also included the edition number in Roman numerals and a plaque indicating the year the match was played.
Above this base sits a small knurled ring that in turn supports a shiny golden vase decorated with small tiles arranged at regular intervals around its circumference. In the center, the Barcelona logo. A trophy that manages not to be the kind of tacky object summer trophies usually are. It is a cup with mostly symbolic sporting value but emotional significance like few others, as it pays tribute to the person who founded one of the most important clubs in the world.
