page_title: Athletic–Barcelona clásico
section_title: La Liga beginnings and Franco era
hierarchical_section_title: Athletic–Barcelona clásico / History / La Liga beginnings and Franco era
caption_attribution_description: Barcelona, España
context_page_description: The Athletic–Barcelona clásico refers to football matches between Athletic Bilbao and FC Barcelona, two clubs competing in Spanish football competitions.
  The two clubs are among the oldest in the country, and have participated in every season of the national championship, La Liga. Owing to this, as well as contesting eight finals of the Copa del Rey, it is the third most-played football fixture in Spain, after the meetings of each with the third constant member of the league, Real Madrid. Due to this, it has been referred to as a Clásico, the modern Spanish term for a significant and traditional fixture which is not a derbi based on geographical proximity.
  The relationship between Athletic and Barcelona has historically been fairly healthy aside from certain periods when competitiveness became hostility, such as in the early 1980s. By the turn of the 21st century, the rivalry had largely become a historical concept due to the disparity in the fortunes of the clubs and the lack of a local element, but their frequent meetings in matches of importance, including three Copa del Rey finals, restored some relevancy to the fixture.
context_section_description: The teams did not meet again prior to the establishment in 1929 of a national professional league championship, La Liga, which would see them meet regularly and become rivals for the title: Barcelona won the first edition but failed to make much impact thereafter, suffering the humiliation of a 12–1 defeat at the hands of Athletic Bilbao in 1931 (Bata scoring seven in what still ranks as the biggest win in the history of the competition) and also losing the 1932 Copa del Rey Final to the Lions. Athletic were champions four times in the following seven seasons up to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936.
  In broad terms, Catalonia and the Basque Country fought on the losing Republican side in the conflict, and the victorious Nationalist regime soon introduced measures against regional languages and cultures. In 1941, football teams with 'foreign names' and symbols were required to amend them to a Spanish equivalent, thus Club de Fútbol Barcelona and Atlético de Bilbao became the official titles of the historic clubs and the Catalan flag was replaced with the Spanish on Barcelona's crest (the short-lived Republic had done the same with Royalist symbols in the previous decade, altering the names of clubs such as Real Madrid and Real Sociedad and removing crowns from their crests). This oppressive centralist atmosphere in society contributed to the clubs becoming even more important to the local populations, the stadium being one of the few places where they could speak their language and express themselves freely. In this regard, the clubs had much in common and meetings between them were akin to an international fixture, with the regional representative teams also having been disbanded.
  In the domestic league, the performances of Barcelona and Athletic were comparable until the 1960s, with the Basques winning only two titles during the period from 1939 to 1960 compared to seven for the Catalans, but both finishing near the top of the table most years. Athletic won seven cups to Barcelona's six, although the finals between them in 1942 and 1953 both went the way of the Blaugrana. The Barça coach in the latter match, Ferdinand Daučík, soon took over at Athletic, and won trophies with both clubs.
  Daučík had moved to Spain at the same time as his son-in-law and the club's star of the period, the Hungarian László Kubala, who was the first of several foreign imports to make an impact (although the vast majority of players would remain Spanish until much later), winning the league several times plus two Inter-Cities Fairs Cups and a Latin Cup, and enduring a narrow defeat in the 1961 European Cup Final; during his stay, the club also opened their massive ambitious Camp Nou stadium, the cost of which would weaken the club economically for many years. Real Madrid had moved to a larger ground a few years earlier, and they too signed talent from Eastern Europe and South America as well as from around Spain which propelled them to further domestic and continental success, with the positive international exposure pleasing the regime.
  Athletic had a talented forward line in that era, spearheaded by prolific striker Zarra who set multiple goalscoring records including most goals in a season, most overall league goals, most hat-tricks, most goals by an opposition player against Real Madrid, and most goals in the Athletic vs Barcelona fixture. However, just prior to the introduction of regular continental competitions, he and his peers passed their peak, and from that time on the club were unable to consistently compete with their old foes for honours. They continued to use only Basque players, and chose to redevelop their San Mamés stadium rather than constructing a replacement, with much of the funding sourced from the transfer of their defender Jesús Garay to Barcelona in 1960.
caption: László Kubala had such an impact on Barcelona that his statue now stands outside the club's stadium
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