Barça Legends and the Barça Academy arrive in Kyrgyzstan

Barça Legends will play their first game of the season on Wednesday 30 August in Kyrgyzstan, kick off 8pm local time (4pm CEST), against a local “Legends of Asia” XI. Taking advantage of the trip to the Asian country, president Joan Laporta will open the first of two Barça Academies that the Club will open in Kyrgyzstan on Tuesday 29 August. The first academy will be in Jalal-Abad in the south-west of the country whilst the second will be the capital Biskek. Present at the opening will be the Kyrgyzstan president, Sadyr Japarov.

The blaugrana president will lead the party wich will be in the country from Monday and he will also attend the laying of the first brick at the Barça Academy that is to be opened in the near future in Biskek, the capital. Also, the blaugrana delegation will also be present at the laying of the first brick at the new Kyrgyzstan national stadium with the nation’s president and the president of the football federation, Aibek Alybaev.

The opening of the two Barça Academies and the Barça Legends game form part of the agreement announced some weeks ago and come as part of the Barça Experience project which will include a Barça café and a Barça Store in the country. This agreement has as its aim the capturing of news fans and audiences in Central Asia.

First Legends game this season

For the game, coach Albert ‘Chapi’ Ferrer has named an 18 man squad which includes Carles Puyol, Ronaldinho, Rivaldo, Giovanni and Saviola amongst other. The rest of the squad is as follows: Jesús Angoy, Albert Jorquera, Juan Pablo Sorín, Francesco Coco, Sergi Barjuan, Juan Carlos, Jon Andoni Goikoetxea, Juliano Belletti, Roberto Trashorras, Roger Garcia, Edgar Davids, Jofre Mateu and Ludovic Giuly. The game can be seen on Barça official Youtube, Twitch, Facebook and Discord channels.

This will be the first game of the season for the Barça Legends after their last match which came in Lusaka, Zambia in May. Barça were unable tot ake the win in front of 55,000 fans who enjoyed the contest against a Zambia Legends side.

Just days later the squad will reconvene to play two more games, this time in Israel. Maccabi Tel Aviv and Maccabi Haifa be the opponents for ‘Chapi’ Ferrer’s team on 5 and 7 September respectively.