fc barcelona balonmano · History

In the 1968-69 season, FC Barcelona's handball section won the Spanish league and cup for the first time, the double that opened its top-flight honours list. It is the Catalan club's men's handball team, separate from the football side, and it plays its home games at the Palau Blaugrana. This bio traces its path from those first trophies to the European and world double of the 2025-26 season.

First trophies and the Palau Blaugrana

The team was formed in the 1940s, in the days of eleven-a-side handball, and it took more than two decades to reach the top of the Spanish championship. The 1968-69 league and cup changed that. Two years later came the venue the team has never left: the Palau Blaugrana, opened on 23 October 1971 next to the Camp Nou, with room for 7,500 spectators. It shares the arena with the club's other sections, and many of the European ties that shaped the team's story have been played there.

The Valero Rivera era

The leap into Europe came under Valero Rivera, who coached the team until 2004. The first continental trophies were three consecutive Cup Winners' Cups in 1983-84, 1984-85 and 1985-86. In 1990-91 Barça won the European Cup, the continent's top competition, for the first time, and in 1993-94 and 1994-95 it added two more Cup Winners' Cups. Its grip on Europe peaked between 1995-96 and 1999-2000, with five European Cups in a row and four European Super Cups over the same years. Those squads included goalkeeper David Barrufet and Iñaki Urdangarin. The 2002-03 EHF Cup and the 2003-04 European Super Cup closed the Rivera years.

From 2004 to Xavi Pascual's arrival

Without Rivera, Barça won another Champions League in 2004-05, with players such as Iker Romero, but went through a less consistent spell in the Liga Asobal. Xavi Pascual took over in February 2009, and in 2010-11 the team were European champions again. That same season began a run of Liga Asobal titles that carried on through the following years.

The Pascual years

Under Pascual, Barça finished the 2013-14 league with 30 wins from 30 matchdays and 1,146 goals, the highest total in Liga Asobal history. That season also brought the first of its Club World Championships, the Super Globe, which the team retained a year later. In 2014-15 it won another Champions League, with Nikola Karabatić in the squad, and between 2017 and 2019 it collected three more Super Globe titles. Pascual left in June 2021 with 61 trophies, having won the 2020-21 Champions League in his final season.

Antonio Carlos Ortega and the 2020s

Antonio Carlos Ortega, a former player at the club, took charge in July 2021. In his first season Barça retained the European title by winning the 2021-22 Champions League, and they won it again in 2023-24. At home, the section added to its leagues, Copas del Rey, Copas Asobal and Spanish Super Cups the new Copa de España, won in 2023-24, 2024-25 and 2025-26, and the Iberian Super Cup, won in every edition from 2022-23 to 2025-26.

The 2025-26 double

On 2 October 2025, in Egypt, Barça beat Veszprém 31-30 in the second period of extra time in the Club World Championship final, after a 21-21 draw at the end of normal time. It was the club's sixth world title and its first since 2019. Eight months later, on 14 June 2026, in the Champions League final in Cologne, the team beat Füchse Berlin 37-34, having knocked out Aalborg 37-32 after extra time in the semi-finals. Slovenian centre back Domen Makuc was named player of the 2026 Final Four.