MARCA

legs for Monaco to knock his parent club out of the Champions League, the irony was palpable. Scarred, Madrid slipped from first to fourth in La Liga during the campaign’s final weeks, and it would be seven years before they next won a Champions League knockout tie.

“‘ Galactico’ is just a name,” Figo told in 2013. “It was a nickname constructed to sell, and that’s it.”

KNIVES OUT IN BARCELONA

Barcelona had been a shambles ever since Figo’s shock exit, finishing 4th, 4th and 6th.

“There was a really bad dynamic,” Carles Puyol later explained to “We didn’t even compete. At the very least, that’s what your fans demand of you.”

Joan Laporta succeeded Gaspart as Barça’s new president in June 2003. A good- looking,

compulsive, fortysomething lawyer, he could hardly have resembled Florentino Perez less.

Image was everything to Laporta, who was determined to re- establish Barcelona as the team of Catalonia. He had strategists, a press agent and even a documentary team following him, in the first professionally- run presidential campaign in Spanish club football history. And most importantly, he had a plan.

While vice- presidents Ferran Soriano and Marc Ingla worked the numbers, Sandro Rosell – a former high- ranking Nike executive in South America – provided a dressing- room link to director of football Txiki Begiristain and up- and- coming head coach Frank Rijkaard. No matter that they’d promised to sign Beckham if elected. Second prize, using Rosell’s Nike contacts: Ronaldinho.

In polar opposition to Beckham at the Bernabeu, the 23- year- old, buck- toothed

“It’s impossible to win at the Camp Nou – they’re devastating,” says Real Madrid manager Bernd Schuster in the build- up to a Clasico against Pep Guardiola’s resurgent Barcelona. Schuster is immediately sacked.

Brazilian – “too ugly” for Real Madrid, one of their directors had said a year earlier – fitted perfectly with the new Barcelona regime. His home debut against Sevilla kicked off at five past midnight on September 3, as La Liga refused to allow Barça to move the fixture date despite an upcoming international break. At 1.24am, Ronaldinho crashed an unstoppable 30- yard shot in off the bar.

There was only one problem. Barcelona kept losing. As 2003 turned to 2004, Barça, fresh from a 5- 1 humping at Malaga and first Clasico defeat at home in 20 years, fell 18 points behind their eternal rivals. The knives for Laporta sharpened – literally. Els Boixos Nois, an ultras group furious at being phased out of a family- friendly Camp Nou, plastered the walls of Laporta’s home with graffiti death threats. “Found you,” read one.

In Messi’s first game as a false nine, Barcelona gub Real Madrid 6- 2 in the ultimate Bernabeu destruction. Four days later, they’re into the Champions League final as Andres Iniesta strikes late at Stamford Bridge.

Guardiola’s Barça beat Manchester United 2- 0 in the Champions League final. “They get you on that carousel and leave you dizzy,” says Alex Ferguson of the Catalan club’s twin midfield stars, Xavi and Iniesta.

Edgar Davids’ € 2m loan move from Juventus wasn’t too popular, although it helped to free a scheming Xavi from his defensive shackles. From January 11 to May 1, 2004, Barça won 14 and drew three of their 17 league games, including a Xavi- inspired 2- 1 triumph at the Bernabeu, and recovered to finish 2nd.

Next, the contacts of vice- president Rosell delivered style and Champions League- winning experience in two of the 2004 finalists, Ludovic Giuly and Deco. Most important was Samuel Eto’o, who’d been at Mallorca since 1999- 00 but was still technically co- owned by Real Madrid. He was exactly what Barça needed: a proven goalscorer motivated to rub Madrid’s noses in it. He hit 25 goals in his first season as Barcelona romped to the 2004- 05 title.

Everything had clicked. In particular, the core of La Masia- schooled Xavi, Puyol, Victor Valdes and Andres Iniesta chimed with the fanbase in a way that Real Madrid’s Galacticos hadn’t.

“It was like we had returned to Johan Cruyff and the Dream Team,” Xavi later told “In a 4- 3- 3 with the focus on possession, we got back our dream – our Their hope.

Better was yet to come. At the Bernabeu in November 2005, Rijkaard surprisingly selected an Argentine teenager for only his second start of the season, and his first- ever appearance against Real Madrid. Within 14 minutes, Lionel Messi had his first Clasico assist – Eto’o, the goalscorer. Not to be outdone, Messi’s mentor, Ronaldinho, scored a brace. So mesmeric was his first goal, the Brazilian sitting Sergio Ramos on his backside before caressing the ball past Iker Casillas, that the cathedral of stood to applaud. “A stratospheric Ronaldinho retires the Galacticos,” bemoaned the Madrid- based sports daily.

In May, Barça won the Champions League, beating Arsenal in the final. Laporta, front and centre, revelled in the glory. Perez had fallen on his sword four months earlier, conceding “we need a change of direction”.

The king was dead. Long live the king.

“FOOTBALL HAS A GOD. MESSI IS MARADONA, CRUYFF AND BEST ROLLED INTO ONE”

Barça, however, are predisposed to shooting themselves in the foot. Seldom is trouble far from the surface.

In the summer of 2005, vice- president Rosell had resigned and taken eight others with him – including today’s head honcho, Josep Maria Bartomeu – after accusing Laporta of changing

2008– 09 2005- 06 2008– 09

“Football has a god,” wrote “Messi is Maradona, Cruyff and Best rolled into one.”

The Copa del Rey arrived a month later, then the Champions League trophy, to complete an historic treble in Guardiola’s first season.

“That season was my highlight at Barcelona,” Xavi later told “Nothing compares to that season, and I don’t think anything ever will. It is the best season in Barça’s history; the best football I’ve ever seen from a team.”

GUESS WHO’S BACK

That summer, Florentino Perez returned to the Bernabeu. A week after his second coming, the Real Madrid president broke the world transfer record to buy Kaka for € 67m, and then broke it again to recruit Cristiano Ronaldo for € 94m. Karim Benzema, Raul Albiol, Alvaro Arbeloa and Xabi Alonso also arrived, the latter three in an attempt to provide a Spanish core to the team. Perez had been learning.

“We have to do in one year what we would usually do in three,” said Perez. It wasn’t hard to notice the subtext: he wanted the € 250m

of CR7 & Co. to overshadow Barça’s season of seasons. Not to be outdone, Laporta engineered a deal for Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

If there was any doubt that El Clasico was now Spain’s biggest or soap opera, it disappeared in 2010. Perez the pantomime villain was already back; now Jose Mourinho crossed the divide to manage Real Madrid. In the same summer, Rosell returned to become Barcelona president. Four years later he was jailed for money laundering, and replaced by Bartomeu, before being acquitted in 2019.

Figo moving to Real Madrid in 2000 was the turning point. El Clasico, though, is an evolving story. Barcelona are now more likely to splash the cash on playthings they don’t necessarily need – Philippe Coutinho, Ousmane Dembele, Antoine Griezmann – as the ‘ mes que un club’ mantra has increasingly worn away.

In Madrid, the opposite has happened.

“If you look at Barça’s culture,” said a Real employee in 2009, his eighth year at the club, “it’s the same at under- 12 and under- 14 levels. The under- 16s play the same way as the first team. You don’t find that at Madrid, and you wonder what their style is.”

That employee overhauled the Real Madrid academy, with a Barcelona vision, beginning with the B team. Dani Carvajal, Nacho and Marcos Llorente all came through Los Blancos’ resurgent Fabrica to lift the Champions League.

Today, he is the only manager in history to win three European Cups in a row. His name is Zinedine Zidane.

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