Barcelona's Glorious Display Shows the World That Money Isn't Everything

On a wet Monday evening, thousands at the Nou Camp and millions around the world watched on as Barcelona picked apart, dismantled and utterly humiliated the galacticos of Real Madrid. The Catalans beat their great rivals to their knees and then taunted and kicked their floored opponents.

This was the by far the greatest humbling of one great team by another I've seen with the visitors reduced to a disoriented wreck by the end of the contest. They stood, hands on hips, shell-shocked at what they'd walked into as Xavi, Iniesta, Messi and Co. painted an artistic masterpiece with the blood of their adversaries, tearing them apart with a ruthless display.

The two teams were poles apart on the pitch but the disparity is equally magnified off it. The combined cost of the Madrid starting eleven totaled €287.5m, and that's forgetting the lofty €65m spend in to to sign the injury plagued Kaka from AC Milan. In contrast, Barcelona only paid for four of their players coming falling short of  €100m, the same price Real paid for Cristiano Ronaldo alone. This is a truly staggering achievement.

In the world we live in today, everything revolves around money and sport is one of the guiltiest parties. Seemingly every month there is a new Saudi Prince or Russian oligarch taking over a new club and vouching to throw senseless amounts of money in hope that they can buy their way to the summit of European football.

How heart warming and ironic it is then that while the likes of Real Madrid and Manchester City continue to mask their short term problems by sacrificing any kind of togetherness, Barcelona, a club owned by its fans, are the team that all these mindless, billion dollar men are chasing to reach the promised land.

I, for one, root for a team like Barcelona; not only for the way they drive teams around for 90 minutes on the pitch, but for the way they are driven off it and who have blessed the world by giving the beautiful game some of the most beautiful players, and team, to watch in recent history.