The world’s most expensive player will not be there when Real Madrid and Barcelona emerge from the tunnel at the Santiago Bernabéu just before five o’clock on Saturday evening, but the world’s best will. So will the world’s second best, whichever way round you prefer to place them. The winner of the Ballon d’Or will be there, and the winner of last year’s Ballon d’Or. The winner of the European Golden Shoe winner will be there too – both winners of the European Golden Shoe. Plus the winner of the World Cup Golden Ball. And the World Cup Golden Boot.

On Wednesday night, Gareth Bale sat with his feet up, watching on television as his team-mates tore apart Liverpool. No one has ever cost more but they did not really miss him. Not because Bale is not a brilliant footballer – the man who scored in the final of the Copa del Rey and the European Cup clearly is – but because the rest of them are pretty damn good too. They are matched only by the men they face tonight.

It is a measure of the clásico that Bale will miss out because of a muscle injury but the laments have been limited. It is true the symmetry has been damaged a little: it is no longer Cristiano Ronaldo, Bale and James Rodríguez versus Lionel Messi, Neymar and Luis Suárez, parallel players in parallel forward lines. And the headline figure drops too: together, those six footballers officially cost €419m (£330m), of which Bale accounts for €105m (£83m). But there is still so much to get excited about, so many reasons to be drawn to the Bernabéu.

Among them, the potential debut of Suárez. His ban ended at midnight on Friday night; 18 hours later is the clásico. Already the biggest game on earth, it just got bigger. There may never have been a lineup like it. And if that sounds like a familiar phrase, that’s because it is. Every year it seems impossible to improve on the cast but Barcelona and Real find a way. It is a sentence that has been written on these pages before, and on other pages too, and one that will probably be written again.

A headline on the front cover of Marca, reads: “What more can we say?” After a week of buildup, it is the players’ turn. “Never before has a game raised such expectation,” begins the preview: this is the “most expensive game ever”, with “the most stars”. Alongside is a cascade of astonishing, record-breaking figures: gate receipts, TV money, accredited journalists, worldwide audiences. There is a catch. This particular copy of Marca, pulled from the shelf at random, is from December 1996.

Marca from 7 December 1996. Photograph: Sid Lowe

Real v Barcelona may have always been the biggest game there is, an international match in the club calendar. No pair of teams have been so successful and no other clash has the combination of ingredients: the sociopolitical significance, symbolism, history, support base, financial muscle and power. Radi Antic managed both. “Being a director at Real Madrid or Barcelona is more important than being a government minister,” he said. Just because it is a cliche does not mean it is untrue. When the former Real president Ramón Mendoza expressed a similar view, the then US ambassador to Spain wrote to him. The letter basically said: “Dear Ramón, you’re right.”

Above all, no other game has the players. Especially now. That letter from the embassy was a long time ago now. Mendoza gave up the presidency in 1995. That cover in Marca came the following year. There is always more to be said and there are always more players. The stars on the 1996 cover include the original Ronaldo. Alongside him are Raúl, Guardiola and Predrag Mijatovic. Before them there had been Laszlo Kubala and Alfredo Di Stéfano, Luis Suárez Miramontes – the Spanish Ballon d’Or winner – Ferenc Puskás, Johan Cruyff and Emilio Butragueño. After them came Zinedine Zidane and Ronaldinho. And many more. For the last 18 years, every winner of the Fifa world player award, now merged with the Ballon d’Or, has played for Real or Barcelona at some stage of their career.

The accumulation of talent has become greater than ever and the clásico has become internationalised; they are the two richest clubs on the planet, with a reach beyond their borders. They always dominated in Spain, where they account for more than 60% of fans and where even those who claim not to support either usually have an preference for one or the other, but now they are set on conquering the world. “Go to the moon ... Madrid, Barcelona!” Hristo Stoichkov says, laughing.

The more powerful they get, the more star players they buy and the more popular they become, the more money they make and the more they must maintain that popularity ... and so it spirals. They drive each other on, desperate to stay ahead. “Like cathedrals in the middle ages,” in the words of the former Real director Jorge Valdano. One town builds a 100ft bell tower, so the next town has to build a 105ft bell tower.

Real and Barcelona are two superpowers caught in an arms race. Barcelona had Messi so Real had to have Ronaldo. Last summer, Barcelona bought Neymar, Real bought Bale; this summer, Barcelona bought Luis Suárez, Real bought Rodríguez. They were the market’s most expensive players. Bale cost €105m, Suárez cost €81m and Rodríguez cost €80m. A court will decide what Neymar actually cost, with the figure rising from the original €57m.

“Real Madrid go a year without titles and they spend €160m on three players. Barcelona can’t do that,” Gerard Piqué told World Soccer. But this summer they did something similar: Suárez came, but so did Ivan Rakitic, Claudio Bravo, Marc-André ter Stegen, Thomas Vermaelen and Jérémy Mathieu. Real did not buy only Rodríguez: Toni Kroos joined as well, a European champion with Bayern and world champion with Germany.

According to the Castrol Index, Kroos was statistically the best player at the World Cup. No one provided more assists; no one scored more goals than Rodríguez. Rakitic reached double figures for goals and assists in La Liga, the only player outside the big two to do so. And as for Suárez, well, we know about him: the best player at the 2011 Copa América, the 2013-14 PFA player of the year, and joint winner, with Ronaldo, of this year’s Golden Shoe with 31 league goals.

The result is a match where, even in Bale’s absence, the amount of talent is barely believable. And at the risk of jinxing it, a match where goals are guaranteed. Messi is Argentina’s second highest scorer, Ronaldo is Portugal’s, Neymar is on course to be Brazil’s and Suárez is Uruguay’s. Between these two teams, they have scored 52 this season; in their last five league games, Real’s goals for column says: 5, 5, 2, 5, 8. And the top of the goalscoring charts reads: Ronaldo, Neymar, Messi.

It is not enough to have Messi v Ronaldo, but they continue their quest to be the best player in the world and the best in history. After this week’s Champions League games, they stand one and two goals respectively behind Raúl’s all-time European Cup record. No player has had a start to the season like Ronaldo, his 15 goals in the opening eight games (one of which he missed), broke a 71-year-old record. If Messi scores on Saturday , he will join Telmo Zarra as the league’s all-time leading scorer. Just another reason to watch the clásico.

“It’s going to be spectacular,” the Real manager, Carlo Ancelotti, said with a smile. “I’m lucky enough to have a ticket. And I didn’t even have to pay for it.”

Andy Brassell previews the clásico, and asks if Sevilla can continue their best ever start

Today's record-breakers

European Golden Shoe 2013-14: Cristiano Ronaldo/Luis Suárez (31 goals in 62 matches) World Cup 2014 Golden Ball: Lionel Messi (Argentina) World Cup 2014 Golden Boot: James Rodríguez (Colombia) Ballon d’Or 2013: Cristiano Ronaldo