Barcelona’s dismantling of Manchester United in the Champions League final was the crown of what has been thirty years in the making at Camp Nou. The 5-0 El Clásico trashing of Real Madrid earlier in the season and the manner they beat United gave them the third Champions League victory in six seasons and the fifth La Liga title in last seven seasons. Their dominance on the European stage is similar to what we saw from Real Madrid in the late 1950s/early 60s, Ajax in the early 1970s, Bayern Munich in the mid 70s, Liverpool in the late 70s/early 80s and AC Milan in the early 90s.

There are many historical links leading to the total football played by the Barcelona of today, most of them have a common link in Johan Cruyff. The system of “total football” was invented by Rinus Michels, who coached Ajax through their most successful period and with Cruyff as the greatest prodigy. Michels left Ajax for Barcelona, with Cruyff soon following as a player. In 1974 they led Barcelona to their first La Liga title in 14 years, before Michels moved on to lead the Netherlands to the 1974 World Cup. Cruyff was crowned as European footballer of the year for the third time. At the time he was a player at Barcelona, Cruyff convinced Barcelona president Josep Núñez that they needed a youth system similar to the one he came through at Ajax. The birth of La Masia came in 1979, the year after Cruyff left, the complex used by the Barcelona youth system.

In 1988 Johan Cruyff returned to Barcelona as a manager. He had already enjoyed managerial success with Ajax, winning the European Cup Winners’ Cup, and further developed the playing tactics first implemented by Rinus Michels. Some of his Ajax players went on to enjoy further success with teams like AC Milan (Rijkaards and Van Basten) and Arsenal (Bergkamp). With his old Barca team mate Carles Rexach as assistant coach Cruyff pushed on with his football philosophy. He brought in foreign stars who suited the style of play, with Ronald Koeman, Michael Laudrup, Hristo Stoichkov and Romário while pouring resources into La Masia. The first product of the youth system making it through to the first team was Guillermo Amor. He was to go on to win 17 titles with Barcelona, more than any other player in the club’s history.

When Cruyff brought another La Masia graduate in to the first team squad, a 19 year old Joseph Guardiola, he instructed Ronald Koeman to take him under his wing and make sure he understood everything about the Dutch style of play. In 1992 Guardiola and Albert Ferrer (also from La Masia) won Barcelona’s first European Cup final, at Wembley stadium, with Koeman as man of the match.

After Cruyff left players like Victor Valdés, Oleguer Presas, Carles Puyol, Albert Joquera, Xavi Hernandez and Andrés Iniesta were still coming through the youth system, whiles the likes of Cesc Fabregas was poached away from the club. In 2008 Guardiola was promoted from Barcelona B coach to manage the first team. Guardiola was passionately involved with the youth system and Barcelona B and had since his playing days been looked up to by the players. Under his leadership the club started taking maximum advantage of the incredible resource at hand. The club have 15 scouts throughout Catalonia, another 15 throughout the rest of Spain and a further 10 scouts around the world.

Guardiola has successfully continued Cruyff’s Dutch total football, which Cruyff married up with the Spanish tiki-taka one-touch play. In practise superb one-touch players like Messi and Iniesta have Xavi keeping the ball constantly moving. The likes of Busquets drops back to cover when full backs or centre halfs move forward. In the 2011 Champions League final Xavi completed 148 passes, a record high in this season’s competition, where only seven of them were misplaced. Xavi is the conductor of today’s champions, like Laudrup was for Barcelona’s dream team of the 1990s. The current Barcelona team are a level above any other European top team, as conceded by Alex Ferguson after the Wembley defeat. Two thirds of the team won the European Championship and the World Cup for Spain. In addition they have the likes of Brazilian full-back Dani Alves and Argentinian superstar Lionel Messi. Guardiola will continue at least for another season and thus far it’s difficult to see anyone catching up with them. After all, this success did not come overnight.