As you may have realized, Barça`s famous 5-0 rout of archrivals Real Madrid in the 1993/94 season has already been available on my channel for a couple of weeks. This short clip is supposed to provide one of the game`s most memorable moments: Keeper Zubizarreta kicked out to wingback Ferrer, and then Barça triangulated the ball down the right flank at awe-inspiring speed.

Mind you, at a time when only national champions were qualified to play in the Champions League, Real Madrid, being eliminated from the European Cup 1990/91 in the quarterfinal, slipped into international obscurity for years to come. Although Madrid narrowly missed 2 consecutive championships on the last day of the season, Barcelona`s superiority in the years 1990-94 was beyond all doubt. Only when Cruyff`s Dream Team disintegrated as a result of the shock defeat in the Champions League final against Milan, Madrid came out on top again.

Qualified to play in the Champions League for the first time since its inception, Real Madrid made it to the quarterfinal where they met eventual winners Juventus Turin. It`s obvious that Real Madrid hadn`t yet acquired the larger_than_life_ quality that would distinguish them during the Millennium years when they won the competition thrice between 1998 and 2002.

Real Madrid profited from the Bosman ruling like no other club. "Bosman" was indeed a "New Deal" insofar as it capsized the pecking order of European club football. While Real Madrid emerged as a cutting edge team from the caesura that was the Bosman ruling, Milan absented itself from the top level of European football for what was left of the 2nd millennium.