DERBY DAYS EL CLASSICO:Political, cultural andhistorical animosities form the background to Spain's unique derby

IN SPRING, 1953, a combination of bungling and infighting at Futbol Club Barcelona resulted in Alfredo di Stefano arriving from South America with his contract with the club still uncertain, a fact that led Real Madrid president Santiago Bernabéu (yes, that's where the stadium got its name) to stick his oar in and convince the Argentinian to consider moving to the Spanish capital instead.

The ensuing battle for La Saeta Rubia (the blond arrow) was bitter, and, eventually, the Spanish FA intervened and decided, incredibly, that the player should play, alternately, for two seasons with each club. Barca were incredulous and decided they'd rather have nothing to do with the Argentinian than share him with their sworn enemy.

One week later - in July, 1953 - the teams met and Di Stefano scored an "El Classico" hat-trick.

In the following years the greatest player never to have competed at the World Cup finals (though George Best fans may disagree) would be part of one of the greatest club sides ever, with Real capturing eight La Liga titles and five successive European Cups during his 11 years in Madrid (Di Stefano is the club's highest league goalscorer of all time, with 216 goals in 282 matches).

The episode in 1953 is a perfect microcosm of the relationship between the two clubs - the perennial search for the world's greatest players and the animosity between the cities which has made agreement often impossible. And most significantly of all, the perceived bias that Barcelona citizens still carry with them from the 20th century.

In fact, in the years following the Di Stefano fiasco, Barcelona officials would claim their decision was made due to pressure from the Spanish Government.

Before Francisco Franco's death in 1975, his Spanish regime invested substantial resources into suppressing the Catalan language and culture. There was, however, one symbol of Catalonia that it couldn't make disappear and the club itself became one of the only outlets for any expression of Catalan independence from the rest of Spain.

El Derby, therefore, became a battle between the Blaugrana from Barcelona and the state side from Madrid.

In fact, the bias can be traced back even further, to 1920, when Alfonso XIII gave Real Madrid the royal seal of approval, outraging the inhabitants of Spain's second city.

In 1941, Barcelona were apparently ordered to lose a match to their bitter rivals. In protest, they lost the game 11-1, prompting the Barca goalkeeper to be banned from the game for life.

Unlike perhaps any other derby in the world, politics has played as important a part in the clashes between the clubs as football.

In such circumstances you would think that no player would be foolish enough to switch from one club to the other.

However, several players have made the jump, including the current Real Madrid coach, Bernd Schuster, who scored 63 goals from midfield for Barcelona in the 1980s, before sensationally quitting for Real in 1988. In fact, having now acquired a taste for controversial switches, two years later the German jumped ship again - this time for local rivals Atlético Madrid.

But no player transfer between the clubs has caused as much outcry as Luis Figo.

By the end of the 1990s, the Portuguese midfielder was established as the supporters' favourite and the symbol of Barcelona, so the fact that Real were willing to pay an incredible €65 million fee for the player meant little in Catalonia's capital city. It was treachery.

In October, 2000 he returned to Camp Nou in a Real shirt, and Televisió de Catalunya claimed it calculated that the whistles by the home crowd were higher than that of an airplane taking off.

Two years later, the anger had not subsided and taking a corner kick became an health concern for the 2001 FIFA World Player of the Year - among the items thrown at him in Barcelona apparently include Barca flags, coins, golf balls, whiskey bottles and, most strange of all, a pig's head.

The two goals in the final minutes of last weekend's game at Osasuna means Barcelona arrive at the Bernabéu this evening knowing that the home side has already wrapped up their 31st Primera Liga title - 13 more than the Catalan side.

But even more humiliating is the obligation of giving their rivals a champion's guard of honour as they run on to the field.

With their former talisman Ronaldinho looking likely to leave the club at the end of the season, coach Frank Rijkaard may not be far behind him - especially if the new league champions were to inflict any more suffering on the struggling club.

For two cities famous for being so welcoming, housing two clubs whose lifeblood runs with such enmity for the other may be strange, but, perhaps, given the long path to this evening's game, it's understandable.