Barcelona and Real Madrid have often clashed when chasing the same player yet few sagas have been as famous as that involving Johan Cruyff, with the Dutchman having had the opportunity to sign for either one of the two Spanish behemoths.
Just why didn't the Dutch icon not sign for Real Madrid?
Barcelona have always maintained that Cruyff only ever wanted to join the Catalan giants, whereas Los Blancos believe he was steered towards Catalonia by the then Ajax president Jaap van Praag.
What is obvious is that the Blaugrana paid the asking price and Los Merengues did not.
After a ban on foreign signings came as a direct response to Spain's abject performance at the 1962 World Cup, it was determined that from the 1973/74 season that players from abroad would finally be allowed to be signed.
This followed a period where clubs looked to rather unscrupulous methods to cover up their foreign signings, with Barcelona eventually utilising the help of lawyer Miquel Roca to get evidence that other clubs were flouting the rules.
In 1970, Barcelona coach Vic Buckingham advised the club to sign Cruyff, the star of Ajax at that time, and the player was invited to the Camp Nou.
Photographs were taken and the player himself determined that the Catalan city would be a pleasant place to live.
Due to the aforementioned regulations on foreign players, the signing wasn't able to happen, but Los Cules did secure a first-option to sign the Dutchman upon the expiry of his contract with the Amsterdam giants.
The 1973 European Cup final was attended by Santiago Bernabeu himself, and it was there that he floated the idea of Real Madrid signing Cruyff to the Ajax president Van Praag, with it clear a transfer battle would commence.
Rumours spread and L'Equipe reported at the time there had been two offers to Ajax for the player, one from Real Madrid with a value of 30 million pesetas.
The second offer came from Barcelona and it was reported to be worth 50 million pesetas.
Eventually an agreement was reached with Barcelona for around 90 million pesetas.
Despite protestations to the contrary, it seemed that Real Madrid weren't in a position to financially match Barcelona's offer, especially with plans to build a new stadium at that time, even if that never came to fruition.
Santiago Bernabeu, though, would give another argument years later for the failure to sign the Dutchman.
"Nobody had ever spoken to me so much and so well about a player, but neither the player nor the president were men of their word," he later stated in his autobiography.
"In a hotel in La Coruna when we had everything done and agreed, Van Praag asked for a million dollars and threatened to go to Barcelona.
"I freed Van Praag from the commitment and he sold the player to Barcelona.
"The nerve of the president didn't really bother me, but that of the player did."
In the end, Cruyff did sign for Barcelona and went on to enjoy several victories over Los Blancos, as well as changing the philosophy at the Catalan club for years and decades to come.