In short
Podcast Episode Notes: The Sports Agents - Messi, Ronaldo & a pig's head: How did El Clasico become the world’s biggest club match? - How It All Played Out
Episode Overview In this episode of *The Sports Agents*, hosts Gabby Logan and Mark Chapman are joined by Spanish football journalist Guillem Balague to explore the evolution of El Clasico, the rivalry between Real Madrid and Barcelona. The discussion covers historical contexts, pivotal moments, and myth-busting surrounding the iconic football match.
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Key Topics Discussed
- El Clasico: The Biggest Club Match
- The episode opens with a question about the biggest club match in football history, with El Clasico being the consensus among most fans.
- Highlights pivotal moments that shaped the rivalry, including:
- Alfredo Di Stefano's controversial signing by Real Madrid in 1953.
- Johan Cruyff's arrival at Barcelona in the 1970s.
- The infamous transfer of Luis Figo from Barcelona to Real Madrid, marked by a severed pig's head incident.
- Cultural and Historical Context
- Discusses how El Clasico is more than just a football match but a reflection of cultural and historical tensions in Spain:
- Real Madrid is associated with the establishment and is seen as Franco's team.
- Barcelona represents Catalonian identity and the struggle against oppression.
- Myth busting regarding the simplistic narratives surrounding each club’s historical context.
- Myth Busting with Guillem Balague
- Balague offers insights that challenge the traditional narratives:
- Real Madrid was not always the establishment club and faced significant challenges during and post-Franco's regime.
- The historical successes of Barcelona during Franco's rule are often underreported.
- Examples of key figures in Real Madrid's history who opposed the regime, challenging the notion of Madrid as solely Franco's club.
- The Evolution of Rivalry through the Years
- Transition from early rivalries to the modern era defined by superstars:
- Impact of Johan Cruyff on redefining Barcelona’s philosophy and mentality.
- The rise of the Galacticos era at Real Madrid, characterized by high-profile signings and a new approach to football branding.
- The rivalry reached new heights during the Messi-Ronaldo era, where their competition became a defining narrative in football.
- Modern Implications and Future Directions
- Discussion of the current state of La Liga in the context of global football, including the impact of television deals and overseas matches.
- The potential for El Clasico to be played internationally and the financial motives behind it.
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Key Takeaways
- Cultural Significance: El Clasico serves as a lens through which the complexities of identity, history, and politics in Spain can be examined.
- Evolving Narratives: The mythologizing of each club's history presents a simplified view; a more nuanced understanding reveals the intricacies of their respective journeys.
- Interdependence: Both clubs need each other to sustain the rivalry and keep the interest alive globally.
- Legacy: The episode underscores the significance of historical moments in shaping not only the clubs but also the larger narrative of football itself.
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Conclusion The discussion provides a rich exploration of El Clasico, highlighting how historical context, cultural identity, and modern football dynamics have shaped one of the greatest rivalries in sports history. The insights from Guillem Balague offer a deeper understanding of the myths and realities of this iconic match-up.
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Contact and Social Media
- Email: howitallplayedout@global.com
- Social Media: @playedoutpod
For more information and past episodes, check out [Global Player](https://globalplayer.com).
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:01Paul Hayward:This is a Global Player original podcast.
0:07Mark Pougatch:What do you think is the biggest club match in the world? Liverpool against Manchester United? Boca Juniors against River Plate? Inter Milan versus AC? Well, I think the vast majority of football fans today would agree it's Real Madrid against Barcelona, El Clasico. It's a story full of myths and several pivotal moments that took this great rivalry to where it is today. Alfredo Di Stefano signing for Real in 1953, not Barcelona. The Catalans getting their revenge in the 70s when the great Johan Cruyff joins. Luis Figo moving from Barca to Real, followed by a severed suckling pig's head. And then Ronaldo and Messi trading goal for goal, title for title in the 2010s.
0:54Mark Pougatch:So just how did El Clasico become the biggest club match in the world? This is how it all played out.
1:10Mark Pougatch:Paul, I honestly think this subject embodies everything about this podcast that you and I like and why we wanted to do it. Because through the prism of this great rivalry, you can see all mankind's strengths and weaknesses. It's about identity, culture, history, belonging. It's about art, skill, scheming, bitterness, genius, rage, jealousy, all with football at the heart of it. What do you think? I think everything is covered in this subject. Yeah.
1:35Paul Hayward:And I think one of the things we try and do is return to monolithic subjects where everybody thinks they know what happened and say, is that really the truth? Is that the true version of events? And you find out so much more when you go back and you say, well, let's just interrogate that a bit. and of course we're joined by the great Guillaume Balaguet here today who knows a lot more about the Clasico than we do, let's face it, and about Spanish history. And even in our little chat beforehand,
1:59Mark Pougatch:I think he is here to bust quite a few myths, Guillaume. Thank you. But I mean, it's a huge credit to La Liga and Spanish football that everybody is so invested in El Clasico and where it all started. But let me give you the black and white, which I know you're going to bust from the word go. So growing up, we see here Real Madrid, establishment team, dictator Franco's team, bunch of right wing fascists, bribe all the referees. They win everything. Poor Barcelona, Catalonia, independence. You can't shout Franco, you murderer, but you can shout at the Real Madrid players as the only way of some sort of protest.
2:37Mark Pougatch:So here we go with busting myth number one.
2:39Guillem Balague:Quite clear. Football Club Barcelona has won the narrative war. They've portrayed that being the story. But as Paul said, there's so many angles to every story, starting with the fact you call it El Clásico, and we all call it El Clásico, as if this game was born with that name. Somebody's got to baptize that much. Who do you think he was and what time in history? Alfredo Relano is one of the masters of journalism. I'm sure you met him, Paul.
3:09Paul Hayward:Yeah.
3:09Guillem Balague:So he was the boss of El País, a forward-thinking newspaper, Canal Plus, which again for the first time charged Spanish people to watch football, so then he had to decorate it with stories, with programming, etc. and help if you put tack to things. So he, in the 90s, called Barcelona Real Madrid El Clásico for the first time. And that's perhaps the first surprise in the 90s.
3:35Paul Hayward:Wow. And how was that received? Because, you know, was it El Clásico in the 90s? Because we think of it really taking off with this incredible constellation of superstars with the Galacticos against the Guardiola's Cruyffian Barcelona. Do you think in the 90s and the 80s it was still, did it deserve that title?
3:53Guillem Balague:Yeah, I mean, the fact that it was baptized that way, there's nothing bigger. It was the big game. In the 90s, no doubt about it. And then, as this is the kind of place where we can go a little bit further back, I'll tell you that when the first matches took place at the beginning of the 20th century, there was no rivalry yet. and then things started happening. The English lads that filled both squads disappeared, replaced by locals. So already you've got Barcelonians at Barcelona and Madrileños in Madrid and that creates its own tension, of course. And for any rivalry, you need a moment where everything went wrong and this is the semifinals of the Spanish Cup in 1916 with six penalties, two replays And Barcelona decided to abandon the beach.
4:43Guillem Balague:Because they were not happy with what happened. In protest. The referee, by the way, had played for both teams. But more for Real Madrid. So from then on, you've got the idea coming from Catalonia that Madrid was the club protected by the central government. The establishment club. But, as you said, was Real Madrid Franco's team. And in many ways, and there's lots of evidence, they suffered under or acted independently from the dictatorship. I'll give you a few examples and stop me when you're bored of this. But during the Spanish Republic, this is 31-36, Real Madrid won more leagues than Barcelona.
5:21Guillem Balague:This is the two leagues, two cups, and Barcelona just won one. Rafael Sánchez Guerra, and I'm going to give the full names here because they are the abandoned people of Spanish football. He was a Real Madrid president, Republican city councilor that was jailed and forced into exile after the war. Antonio Ortega was a Republican army colonel that became president of Real Madrid during the war and was executed by Franco in 1939. And not many people tell that story. Pedro Patricio Escobar, Real Madrid's captain, was a Republican. He was in prison, escaped execution four times, and exiled. And he later wrote a book difficult to find death row about the experience.
6:02Guillem Balague:During the war, Real Madrid Stadium was used as a Republican military base. And after the war, only four Madrid players survived without imprisonment, exile or execution. That paints a different picture. I think that's really important because the simplistic idea has persisted that Madrid was the centralist, royalist, fascist stronghold.
6:25Paul Hayward:And Catalonia was full of Republicans and anarchists and free thinkers. And you could split the two down the middle. It's simply not the case.
6:32Mark Pougatch:Vincente Del Bosque, the lugubrious manager of Real Madrid, later Spain, but he was the manager when they won the Champions League in Paris. I remember being there, Stiemann-Manaman's volley. I think he got sacked the next day, didn't he, Vincente? So he's a Real Madrid player, played in the European Cup final against Liverpool in 81, and manager. His father was in a Francoist prison camp for three years, Del Bosque's father. And Del Bosque said the idea that Real Madrid is Franco's club is totally off the mark.
6:58Guillem Balague:Real Madrid, at the end of the war, were in disarray, and Franco almost disbanded, almost closer down. But obviously, especially in the mid-50s, when Real Madrid was the team that was in Europe and on television, and went and succeeded in European land, was used by Franco as an international symbol of the regime. So much so, that when Real Madrid came onto the pitch, what you heard was not the Real Madrid anthem, but the Spain anthem. And that idea of Real Madrid representing Spain went on for a long time.
7:33Mark Pougatch:It was a sort of soft power thing, wasn't it?
7:35Guillem Balague:It is. It is a club that is representing a winning mentality, modern country, international, something that really wasn't happening.
7:45Mark Pougatch:Yeah, reintegration into Western society after the early years of the dictatorship.
7:49Paul Hayward:Real Madrid used Franco and Franco used Real Madrid. I mean, on the footballing side, it strikes me, Guillaume, that if one of these clubs wins the first five European Cups and wins the league every year, as most years as Real Madrid did, what that does, it creates a dynamic where one of those clubs has already disappeared over the horizon and is the superior club, and the other one becomes the underdog by the nature of the early pattern of results. So did Barcelona from that point, from the great era of Puskas and Di Stefano and Gento become the underdog club who had a giant to pull off a perch, you know, if that's not mixing my metaphors, which it is.
8:29Guillem Balague:The problem is for the first 15 years of Franco in charge, Ramadar did not win the league. It was won by Barcelona more often than not. And in fact, at the end of the Franco regime, I think is 2120 in terms of domestic titles. So Barcelona put a lot of focus on conquering their own space within Spain, both politically and sportingly as well. And they could have told another story. Yes, Real Madrid is succeeding, but look at Real Madrid. They're not winning the titles. We are. Instead, matching the Catalan... I'm Catalan, so I can say this. Matching the Catalan mentality, Barcelona felt much more comfortable with the victim role of saying, you know what?
9:11Guillem Balague:It's bent against us. Yeah, it's just always going to... And of course, you're going to find enough mistakes, enough corrupt people I know Guruceta, the referee, was going to come out in the conversation at some point there's enough to say look, it's absolutely true and because Barcelona and Athletic Club and Real Sociedad were repeating a story that you were all buying at that same point Madrid did not have a story and then in the 80s there was La Movida Madrileña which is a cultural of search of Madrid as the center of modernism and different ways of looking at the world, where Pedro Almodóvar was kind of born, and the Quinta del Buitre, the Utregueno group of winners as well.
9:59Guillem Balague:All from the streets of Madrid, pretty much. There was like five or six middle class Madrid guys, but they were all identified with Madrid. So then there was like, oh yeah, Madrid plays well, but it's all about winning. Jorge Baldano helped with that narrative of saying, I think they represent a country in Catalonia. I think Real Madrid don't need to do that because their DNA is winning. Ah, okay. And then people started embracing that. But as you can see, what you tell about yourself is very important. Why you buy off them is very important. Is that the truth? It's just part of the truth.
10:47Mark Pougatch:So Alfredo Di Stefano helps Real Madrid win the first five European Cups in a row, scores in all the finals. And this is a low point, Guillaume, for Barcelona until 1974 when the great Johan Cruyff arrives. And the quote is, the change in mentality was brutal. They go from fourth bottom to champions for the first time in 14 years, including a 5-0 win in the Bernabeu. I love this. there was a newspaper headline with an elephant foot hovering over a tiny defenseless chick. Obviously, it really did change the mentality in the Barcelona mind.
11:22Guillem Balague:That Ramadri was seventh in the table. So they weren't the rivals in the table anyway. But certainly by the arrival of Johan Cruyff, that fan of Barcelona that was bottom of the table, the transformation was huge. And the biggest thing that Johan Cruyff has done for Catalonia and for Football Club Barcelona is to ask, why are we victims? Why are we looking always for reasons for defeats? Why do we think it's all to do with somebody else? And he changed that, even though in every era there is the temptation to go back to, oh, no, no, no, but it's because of them. Laporta, for instance, uses that every time there is one or two defeats.
12:00Guillem Balague:But certainly the likes of Pep Guardiola embrace that. And it's like, yeah, we're not the victims. We can actually define ourselves by winning, by a style, by the profile of players that we get. And that's all done to Johan.
12:13Paul Hayward:It's amazing to think that, I mean, and he also said he told European journalists that he couldn't sign for Real Madrid because he didn't want to play for a club associated with Franco. That was very Cruyffian. But it's an amazing sequence we're talking about now because you get the genius of Cruyff transforming Barcelona on the pitch in the mid-1970s, which begets the dream team with Cruyff as manager, which begets Guardiola and leads to a style of play that revolutionizes, well, English football for a start. So, you know, when we're talking about these games in the mid 70s and Cruyff entertaining everybody and changing the Barcelona mindset, the ramifications of that go all the way through the decades right up to today.
12:54Mark Pougatch:Well, they said Pep Guardiola suckled at the teat of Cruyff. That's the quote.
12:58Paul Hayward:Yeah, that's fair enough. I mean, you were quite young then. And when you were watching those dream teams, never mind all the academic knowledge you have now, but when you watch them at the time, did you feel that something had changed in football? certainly something to change in Barcelona, obviously, but did you feel like this was a revolutionary thing? It's a good point because no, no.
13:16Guillem Balague:We all identified football with winning. And when you win, you're good. You don't win, you're no good. You know, the Quinta del Burite, good in Spain, bad in Europe. Cruyff, oh, wow, yeah, he's actually winning. But what was happening was happening in the training ground. And it wasn't so much the training. So even if we went to see some training sometimes, remember there was that pitch, next to the Camp Nou, you could go and watch the training, but you didn't see nothing special. But you actually, Johan Cruyff was changing the mind of what were going to be about 12 coaches, 12 managers, including Albert Ferrer and Stolichkov and Kuhnman and of course Pepe Wardiola, etc.
13:56Guillem Balague:What was happening is in their heads because, and this to me is the biggest lesson of Johan Cruyff, he asked everyone, why not? So, no, we do things that way. why cannot do it this other way and when now Pep Guardiola gets stuck sometimes he always asks himself what will Johan Cruyff say which means that he's asking himself how can I think about another way of thinking why not doing it this other way
14:24Paul Hayward:so this is a whole other question which we shouldn't go into now but has Pep Guardiola suspended the Cruyffian way this season at Manchester City has he changed the style of play because he thinks well I can't actually play the way I want to and I'm just going to put it aside for a while Mafi says that we're only talking about the classic yeah yeah true true true
14:43Mark Pougatch:that's a completely interesting by the way fascinating discussion
14:47Guillem Balague:I'll be free next week
14:48Paul Hayward:okay yeah we won't have it now
14:49Mark Pougatch:it's really interesting what you say about and if I dare say it's a very Anglo-Saxon way of looking things you've won therefore you're good you've lost therefore you're bad but nevertheless they still needed to win the European Cup Barcelona because Real Madrid have won all these European Cups that they never had and we remember obviously because of Terry Venables 1986 and losing on penalties and we were upset because we loved Terry Venables 1992 Wembley which we remember very clearly was a massive there has to be a seminal moment in every football club's history and to win your first European Cup is up there and that liberated them didn't they go okay they've won all those European Cups in Madrid but now we're European champions and does that ratchet the rivalry up a little bit because they can say to Madrid ah we've done it now as well
15:29Guillem Balague:they need three hands Real Madrid to actually say how many they've won So that still gives them an advantage in the eyes of many. But you're absolutely right in that it gave the confidence to Barcelona that it wasn't just leagues or Cops that they were winning, that they could be up there. But that wasn't followed up for a long while. So it was just that win. I remember many, many years later when Patrick Kluiver came to Barcelona and said, tricky question at the end, you know, are you happy to be at Barcelona? By the way, how many European Cops have Barcelona won? This is somebody that should know or at least been from Holland and Johan Cruyff and Rinos Mitchell, you should know.
16:06Guillem Balague:And he went like, five? No, just the one. Just the one? And he was like, just the one? Doesn't that tell you, by the way, that the history being told in the eyes of Barcelona either somehow masks the lack of success in Europe at certain times, but certainly makes you fall in love with the idea more than with the success. Yeah, more than the reality. I mean, they succeeded a lot, but Real Madrid is a team set to conquer. And Barcelona is a team set to fall in love with. And because they have an idea that, again, you've all bought, and it's a wonderful idea, but Real Madrid don't have it. So they either win, or then they just don't know where to go.
Read the full transcript
16:52Paul Hayward:Well, so in the next section, we should get on to what would count as a Real Madrid idea, which is to buy the best, most expensive players in the world, put them all together, call them the Galacticos, and tread on Barcelona through sheer weight of celebrity and talent and money.
17:28Mark Pougatch:so paul guillem into the modern era and the galacticos era where we've got to start with luis figo who makes a hugely controversial move from barcelona to real madrid which is all to do with release clauses and presidential elections. It's quite complicated. Anyway, he makes the move. And people would have seen this on social media. It's the second time he goes back to the new camp. He gets thrown at him as he goes to take a corner. Coins, a knife, a glass whiskey bottle, and pick me up on my pronunciation, Guillem, a cochinillo. Some cochinillo. Cochinillo, which is the severed head of a suckling pig.
18:02Mark Pougatch:And the Barcelona president says, we don't even eat suckling pig here. and he blames Figo for walking too slowly over to the corner and inciting the fans.
18:10Guillem Balague:I'll tell you two things you may not know about that transfer. One, that the main responsible or the one that put it together was Paolo Futre, Atletico Madrid legend.
18:19Paul Hayward:That's the first thing.
18:20Guillem Balague:And second thing, that Figo rang Gaspar, the president of Barcelona, to say, please buy me back. Yes. But that would have meant that Barcelona would have paid Florentino Perez the amount of all the season tickets of Real Madrid for a year.
18:36Mark Pougatch:It was about£19 million to buy back their own player.
18:39Guillem Balague:Yeah. So, obviously, that's not going to happen. That was a conversation at three o 'clock in the morning. But it was hard for Barcelona to take, even though it fed in their narrative. But it was hard to take because he was a captain. He was the godfather of Pep Guardiola's son. He was seen as... He was a Ballon d 'Or winner. Ballon d 'Or winner. and he actually represented very well the leadership of Barcelona, saying the right things in front of the fans, etc. So very, very difficult to take. But actually the best years of Figo were at Real Madrid and he was part of a concept that was modern, very modern and very well thought of, of copying Disney and getting brands to come to the big brand of Real Madrid and put them together.
19:27Guillem Balague:Looking it back, it's like, ah, Florentino had a vision that nobody else had seen at that point. and many have copied since. So that was the beginning of it. And to actually start with having lost an election front, you know, the one before, winning it by taking the captain of your rival at a time, yes, we're talking about the Classico is the Classico, is the big two forces in European football. It's just one of the master strokes in history.
19:53Paul Hayward:You mentioned the pig's head. Somebody also threw a full bottle of whiskey at him that day. I was quite generous throwing a whole bottle of whiskey. And on his first visit in October 2000, three mobile phones, several half bricks, a bicycle chain and a shower of coins. So by the time the pig's head came on the pitch, he was quite used to it. But it's not just about Figo, is it? Because around that time, as we're saying, Real Madrid start to try and get all the big brands in European football and put them together. so Zidane and Beckham Roberto Carlos later Ronaldo and Bale and Modric and Cruz and Benzema and Mbappe so this is the start of something isn't it, this is the start of a business model that begins with that first set of Galacticos who were let's face it, fantastic to watch I went to see them a lot, partly because of Beckham and I love going there because if you suspended your disquiet about the branding and the money and the vulgarity of it they were a fabulous team to watch
20:52Guillem Balague:And perhaps the first and only time in which Real Madrid was seen for the quality of the players, for their branding, for their commercialism, because they won nothing. They hardly won anything. Well, they won initially, didn't they?
21:06Mark Pougatch:Sorry, 2-0-1, they won the league, then Zidane's volley 2-0-2, then the league 2-0-3, then they won nothing, didn't they?
21:12Guillem Balague:So, not enough for what it was sold as. I mean, I remember a double spread in the Observer talking about, it wasn't even a question, it was the best team ever. You didn't write it, Paul.
21:24Paul Hayward:No, certainly not.
21:26Guillem Balague:And it was like, what? Because there were so many cracks in that concept, in that idea. But also, it took football to another dimension. You have to say, and I think you can say it in a podcast like this, fans are the most conservative people in the whole of football. And there are people sometimes, Santiago Bernabéu, Florentino Perez, John Laporte in his first era, David Dean, a few people that have got vision and takes football to another level, another dimension. And Florentino not only needed to sort out the finances of Real Madrid that were in a bad state, he just wanted to take over Spanish football, then European football, and now he's still aiming to leave a legacy for his name that goes beyond the one of Santiago Bernabéu.
22:12Guillem Balague:And it includes, of course, as we know, the creation of a new competition. But the seed of all that was that Galactico idea.
22:20Mark Pougatch:There's so many good quotes about that when it stopped working. Carlos Quiroz, who was Sir Alex Ferguson's number two for a bit at Manchester United, was briefly Real Madrid manager. A lot of people were briefly Real Madrid manager. A Ferrari can't run without tyres. When McAlealy went to Chelsea and immediately underpinned Jose Mourinho's first title winning team and Beckham arrived, Beckham's arrival was the scientific proof that the spectacle was more important than the game itself. And another unnamed Real Madrid manager, I love this one, everyone wanted to be the maitre d', no one wanted to wash the plates.
22:51Mark Pougatch:In the end, there was no balance in the team, was it? So it could not function.
22:54Guillem Balague:That gets explained very, very quickly in a story that was told by some of these players and by Ferencino himself off the record, but it can't come out now. He was getting the calls from the players. This is not working. We need this. What's this about? And the calls that he was taking, or at least the people he was conversing, were the Galácticos. The Mitchell Salgados, the Raúls, all these people didn't have the air of the president. So he realized that he had fed them too much, the Galácticos. And he was intelligent enough to actually live at the top of the Galáctico era with the idea of rebuilding, a couple of years later, in a different direction, making sure that what the mistakes he had made wouldn't happen.
23:40Guillem Balague:And you can see the consequences. Real Madrid keep winning, keep having some of the best players in the world and financially in a very sound place.
23:48Paul Hayward:It also created this idea that if a player wanted to climb his personal Everest, he had to go to Real Madrid. That was the pinnacle. Nobody could say no to Real Madrid. So in all the transfer speculation and all the talk about where people were going to go, that Real Madrid was seen as the ultimate magnet, you know. Still is.
24:09Guillem Balague:Still is, absolutely. Yeah, I guess so. If you move from the Galactico era to the next one, to the Sky Sports era, I feel like we started doing Spanish football in 1997, and perhaps at that time not many people was watching us. From the moment David Beckham arrives in 2003, it's just the interest goes huge. We changed David Bobbin, who was the presenter at the time, and he started loving Spanish football. He moved on, and we We put a younger presenter in Rob Botton. And Sky Sports did a great job of putting Spanish football right at the end of the Premier League, of course. That would be open.
24:44Guillem Balague:You didn't have to change Sky Sports 1. Spanish football was on. And who was watching it at the time? Jude Bellingham, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Marcus Rashford, who, of course, their dream was to go to Spain.
24:55Mark Pougatch:They get seduced by it, quite understandably. Isn't it amazing? Because Jose Mourinho comes along when Pep Guardiola's team is doing so brilliantly. and basically the message is just win. We don't care how you win. There's this amazing thing, and I think it happens if we stop to think about it with Liverpool and Manchester United and probably with Celtic and Rangers as well. It's impossible for both of them to be good at the same time. There's almost a counterbalance in the DNA that one has to be up and one has to be down.
25:20Guillem Balague:With the exception of those years with Jose Mourinho and Pep Guardiola or the year. Those were the two best teams in the world by a mile, by the way. So when you have Liverpool and Manchester City at each other's throats for four or five years and people look at your league and say, Farmers League, there's only two teams winning it. The rest cannot catch up. It cannot be described like that because these are the two best teams in the world. Barcelona and Madrid were ahead of the curve and for Real Madrid and Mourinho not to win the Champions League, it must be one of the things that hurts him the most because he had at his disposal the first, second best team in the world.
25:58Paul Hayward:Yeah, because what we have here is two, I mean, the rivalry is good enough as it is, but you have two gigantic headlines for world football that nobody can take their eyes off. One is Mourinho against Guardiola. And then the other, of course, is Ronaldo against Messi. So those two rivalries gave the whole thing. I mean, the numbers with Ronaldo and Messi are insane. I mean, during the nine years they played together in Spain, they scored a total of 922 goals, including 38 in the Clásico, 20 by Messi, 18 by Ronaldo. Between 2016 and 2021, Messi accounted for half of Barcelona's goals and assists.
26:38Paul Hayward:I mean, some other wonderful players in that team, Xavi and Iniesta, but it's gone now. But the Messi-Ronaldo thing in Spanish football held the attention of the whole world for nine years. Paul, never in the history of the game,
26:51Guillem Balague:never, ever in the history of the game, you had the two best players in the world, perhaps of history, or at least one of them, fighting for the collective titles, all of the collective titles, the individual titles, representing the two most famous clubs in the world. It's just never, ever happened. No, no. So, you know, you had the Estefano at some point, and then you have Johan Cruyff at some point, and then you have the Butragueño dynasty. It just didn't happen at the same time. And here, it was just incredible. I think I realize now. So, you know, I started doing books. I have to do Messi.
27:24Guillem Balague:I have to do Pep. Not realizing that was chronicle, in my eyes, obviously, the best era in football that we've lived.
27:31Paul Hayward:Yeah, yeah. I think that's so true because we almost became blasé about it. You know, it's Messi and Ronaldo again. And I remember thinking, tell you what, you're going to miss this when it's gone. Oh, yeah, yeah. Because this is the best thing in world football. And it's there every week, pretty much. and it's there in the Clasicos once every couple of months.
27:49Guillem Balague:And also, we're thinking, right, when that goes, the Premier League is going to take over, you've got the money, blah, blah.
27:54Paul Hayward:We've got them up there, La Minia, Mal.
27:56Mark Pougatch:Sorry about that. And just to underpin a sort of cementing about Clasico for the game it is today, when it's still Pep v Jose in spring 2011, four Clasicos in 18 days. So you've got a league game, Copa del Rey final and Champions League semifinals. And there was a Spanish journalist who said his son said to him one day, Daddy, what are you going to remember about these four games? And he went, the fights? Because that was, you know, it was then, wasn't it? It was conspiracy theory. It was paranoia. It was going back to where we started. It was victimization a bit. Oh, they're doing that just to sort of talk to your own constituency, to buffer up your own, you know, your own thoughts.
28:36Guillem Balague:Yeah, with the exception that, you know, you said Real Madrid told Jose Mourinho, or whatever it is, goes. They didn't say that, but they didn't say anything else either. So they just let him rule the roast. And he was just like, anything goes. And he put out there things that were false. He put out there... Fake news. Yeah, fake news. I don't even want to repeat them because they're fake news. But he put things out there that divided the country, that divided the Ramadid fanhood, that divided France. so he felt that to win he needed to put a lot of venom and I will never forgive him for that and I had a great relationship with him and when we see each other we're very professional but he knows and I've written it that is not sport I'm sorry but that's not sport there's no need for any of that
29:25Mark Pougatch:because by the way you had a really impressive team they were so desperate to win it was a Faustian pact you do whatever it takes to win because we've got to knock Barca off their place
29:35Paul Hayward:Well, you can remember him poking Tito Villanova in the eyes, slapping Carlos Puyol in the tunnel. He went down and dirty, Mourinho, didn't he, to try and close the gap, I guess, with this brilliant aesthetic Guardiola team that on the pitch, very often his team couldn't cope with. I remember when he was at Inter, I said,
29:54Guillem Balague:when you go to Real Madrid, sorry, if you go to Real Madrid, what would you do first? It's like, well, I'll make sure that I put a bomb under the red carpet that Barcelona gets welcome into the pitch, meaning everybody was in love with Barcelona. How could you not be? But also the authorities that were in his eyes helping Barcelona. And if they weren't, he was going to put out there the idea that they were. Yeah. So then, one, you take a decision because people are human,
30:19Paul Hayward:then it makes you want to. So how much of it, Guillermo, in Mourinho's mind, how bitter was he that Barcelona were never interested in him as the manager? Or were they?
30:28Guillem Balague:They were. They interviewed him in Lisbon. Chique Begueristan interviewed him. and when he was proposed to the board who should take over, Chico Biggestan had changed his mind and another couple of directors more and they said, no, it's got to be Pep. They were very impressed in the way he presented what he was going to do with the 4-3-3, but his midfield would have been completely different. Completely different. It looked very much like the midfield of Chelsea a few years back, a few years later.
30:55Paul Hayward:Okay.
30:55Guillem Balague:But no doubt. First of all, Barcelona had somebody that he could have used as credit. Mourinho was their guy but instead they made him the rival and I think you live much happier when you don't have to look for a rival or when you're not described as a rival when you don't have to fight I know Mourinho enjoys fighting but I think one of the things that hurt him was not to be able to have his imprint in his club in Barcelona
31:23Mark Pougatch:I'm so struck when you said putting a bomb under the red carpet because of all the decisions that Barcelona are getting I think we're right back to the beginning here because it was about all the decisions that Real Madrid were getting. To finish with, we have got this game Barcelona-Villa Real being played in the States. Do you think that La Liga bosses, because every European boss, I'm talking about La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga, are jealous of the Premier League's money, overseas deals. Is this a way of the La Liga bosses paving the way for El Clasico to be played in the States one day?
31:53Guillem Balague:For as long as Tebas is in charge of La Liga and Florentino in charge of Real Madrid, that will never happen. That will never happen. Because they are at war. Florentino doesn't want to help La Liga Atto wants to undermine La Liga to be able to rescue the Super League now Barcelona they've abandoned the Super League even though they cannot officially because they signed a contract but he's on his own now Florentino but he will continue that fight and will not help Tebas to his idea of course of taking a Clasico
32:20Mark Pougatch:but that's what the La Liga boss wants to take it over there Tebas would love that yeah of course
32:24Guillem Balague:because they're jealous of the Premier League no because there's a different way of actually commercializing his product So he's in charge of this product given by, he's got the authority given by the clubs. How can we bring more money? I think we all realize that the television money is now stuck, even abroad. So there's perhaps no more money that way. So it must be other ways. And the plan is, yeah, I'll be there. It's great. People, fans, don't like it because they're taking it away from us. But what do we do? We want everybody to follow Barcelona and Real Madrid, but we don't want to take a game there.
33:00Guillem Balague:That's unfair. It's good that it goes to Miami.
33:03Paul Hayward:So just to settle the argument, if you're going before a firing squad tomorrow and you can only watch one more game in your life, I would definitely go for this game.
33:12Mark Pougatch:100%.
33:13Paul Hayward:Partly because of the environment and the culture and the history and the concentration of talent, but also out of respect to all the incredible Clásicos we've seen down the years, and particularly actually during the Messi-Ronaldo era.
33:26Mark Pougatch:And also because, as we've said, because sport is so popular, this is why we do this podcast, Guillaume. Through the prism of sport, you can see everything that you want to know about politics, history, race, equality, racism, etc., etc. And you've busted a few myths, but it's still in many people's minds. Oh, Barcelona, Real Madrid going back, you know, 80, 90 years. You just think there's so much that grew up from it to make the Cal Clasico what it is today.
33:52Paul Hayward:What's better than a Clasico? So, I mean, tell me, I mean, it's just, I mean, what, Liverpool Man United?
33:57Guillem Balague:Not really.
33:58Paul Hayward:No.
33:58Guillem Balague:And the wonderful thing is that Barcelona needs Real Madrid as much as Real Madrid needs Barcelona.
34:03Mark Pougatch:Well, our thanks to Guillaume Balaguet. That was absolutely fascinating. I hope you enjoyed it as well. And if you have, please make sure you rate, follow and subscribe so you never miss an episode. Check out all our past shows on Global Player or wherever you get your podcasts. We'd love to hear from you. You can email us howitallplayedout at global.com. Please send us suggestions for future episodes. And you can find us on socials on at PlayedOutPod. And we'll speak to you next time.
34:40Mark Pougatch:How it all played out is presented by me, Mark Pugach, and Paul Hayward. It's a global original production in association with Apex Content Ventures.
34:50Guillem Balague:This has been a Global Player original production.
From the publisher
From General Franco to Johan Cruyff, and from a pig's head to the Messi v Ronaldo rivalry - Spanish football journalist Guillem Balague joins Mark Pougatch and Paul Hayward to explain how El Clasico became the biggest club match in the world.
And it's not all about fascism versus socialism, underdog versus serial winner...You might think you know the story but believe us, there's a lot of myths to be busted.
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