Tottenham Hotspur will be Barça’s rival in the Joan Gamper Trophy that will be held on August 8 at the Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys at 8:00 p.m. It will be the first game that the Blaugrana team plays in their new fiefdom until the works at the Spotify Camp Nou are finished, scheduled for November 2024.
The match against the English will serve to present Xavi Hernández’s squad for the 2023/24 season to the fans before the start of the League in the official match against Getafe, on August 13, and after having played four friendlies (Juventus, Arsenal, Real Madrid and Milan) during the US tour.
This year will be the second time that Tottenham participates in the Gamper, through which up to five other English teams have already passed: Ipswich Town (1981), Nottingham Forest (1983), Aston Villa (1984), Manchester City (2009 ) and Arsenal (2019).
In fact, the spurs will be the first English team to repeat their participation, although this will be the first time they will face Barça in the tournament.
And it is that in 1986, when Tottenham participated in the Gamper for the first time, the trophy was still disputed between four teams, with semifinals and a final. In that edition, the London team was one of the three invited along with PSV Eindhoven and Milan, but fell in the semifinals against PSV in a penalty shootout (1-1). Barça, on the other hand, beat Milan (3-1) and also defeated the Dutch in the final (1-0), so they did not meet.
The last time they met was in the Champions League group stage of the 2018-19 season. It coincides that the guest is in negotiations with Barça to acquire Clement Lenglet, on loan to Spurs last season.
It will also be necessary to see if the team coached by Antonio Conte will include his great star, Harry Kane, who in recent weeks has been linked to Bayern Munich as a bomb signing. The great addition of Tottenham this summer has been James Maddison, from Leicester City, for whom he has paid 46 million euros.
The 58th edition of the Gamper will be the third to be held at Monjuïc, after those of 1990 and 1996, due to the changes to the pitch that were being carried out at the Camp Nou.
