Recently the former coach of Real Sociedad, Raynald Denoueix, the Frenchman who marched a team starring Xabi Alonso, Nihat and Darko Kovacević´ all the way to the brink of winning La Liga in 2002/03 before being pipped by Vicente Del Bosque's Real Madrid side, visited Barcelona's academy. He asked the head man, Guillermo Amor, ''What is the secret of how to train your players to pass and move so well, to press the ball so intelligently and to be so aware of where they should be on the pitch when the ball is lost?'' The atmosphere turned chilly: ''That's like asking Coca-Cola to share their recipe,'' replied Amor with a very faint half-smile to remove some of the sting. Hyperbole, since Manchester United and Ajax have both produced Champions League winning squads based around academy talent over the past decade and while Arsenal seems as happy to pinch talented youngsters as to breed them, it too invests in footballing youth. Whether any of the development eras in living memory have been this strong is open to question. The squad may emulate its record-breaking season of 2009, when it became the first Spanish team to win the treble of La Liga, the Spanish Cup (Copa del Rey) and the Champions League.

After which, in the same calendar year, it also added the Spanish Supercup, the European Supercup and the World Club Championship. Barca recently ended the half season by scoring more goals and winning more points than any team in Spanish history, humiliated an improving Real Madrid side 5-0, possess seven of the team which started the World Cup final in Johannesburg last summer and is already through to April's Copa del Rey final - against hated rival Madrid again. Should it defeat Atlé´tico Madrid at the Camp Nou, in front of 98,000 roaring Catalans, it will break a Spanish record of 15 straight league victories which has stood since Real Madrid in 1960-61. People want to know how this squad has set historic high water marks in the past three years? Firstly, this team lives or dies by the philosophy that the ball is more important than gold, jewels, a winning lottery ticket or your new-born baby. Johan Cruyff played like that, taught that and prolonged success means that it is now a doctrine.

Secondly this squad is largely home bred. At the Camp Nou they believe it is more effective to teach raw talents a defined footballing doctrine than buy brilliance every season or two and try to fuse different playing styles into a cohesive whole. On Cruyff's arrival as coach in 1988 he instructed that every age group, from nine-year-olds upwards, must play the 4-3-3 system, learn to cherish and use the ball well and must ''play with attacking flair''. Somehow his philosophy has endured his sacking in 1996 after winning with what became known as Barç¸a's ''Dream Team'', lean years between 1999 and 2005 and now appears visionary again. When I first moved to Barcelona in 2002, the city's dominant team was playing atrociously. But no one lost faith in the core values.

Since then there have been two magnificent eras, that of Frank Rijkaard as coach, Ronaldinho, Deco and Samuel Eto'o (Champions of Spain, Champions of Europe) and the current one - former captain Pep Guardiola at the helm as coach and driven by Lionel Messi, Andres Iniesta, Victor Valdes, Gerard Piqué´ and the conductor of the orchestra, Xavi, who has lived through the entire boom-bust-boom rollercoaster. Something important separates those eras. The first had three foreign protagonists at it's sharpest edges - Rijkaard, Ronaldinho and Deco. Each lost their way eventually, allowed success to dull their competitive spirits and professionalism. Now the absolute key players for FC Barcelona are all Catalans or, like Messi, ''feel like a Catalan because I've been here for 11 years and this is home''. Xavi says: ''When I was growing up as a fan, the big players were all foreign - Rivaldo, the De Boers, Vitor Baia, Luis Figo, Juan Antonio Pizzi. Now we have an identity with the club and with the fans - it can make a difference.''

Xavi, like the majority of the squad, is a product of ''La Masia''. That's the Catalan name for a farmhouse and that's precisely where talented kids from outlying districts live when they are trained at Barcelona's youth academy. They are taught skills, they are educated but above all they must embrace and practice that Cruyff doctrine. Xavi explains: ''When you train La Masia as a kid there are phrases drummed into you which still flit through my head during matches 19 years later. ''Charly Rexach [legendary Barç¸a striker and one-time Cruyff lieutenant] always used to yell at us: 'not one-touch football! HALF-TOUCH football'.''

Most teams practice two-touch football, one touch is elusive, dangerous and rarely perfected. But who can defend against properly executed half-touch football? The current right back, Brazilian Dani Alves, once answered when I asked how much it helped to have Xavi as the fulcrum of the team. ''You, me, that guy over there … we all live on this planet,'' he told me, ''but Xavi, he's from a different planet in a different time zone and that's why he sees all the passes ahead of everyone else.'' The result is that the three places on the podium for this year's FIFA Ballon D'Or (the award for world footballer of the year) were all occupied by Barcelona players, Iniesta, Xavi and the winner Messi. It is the first time this has happened in 56 years. Barcelona's three Ballon D'Or players arrived at La Masia aged 11, 12 and 13 respectively and all measure around 170 centimetres.

''Even better than rewarding the La Masia philosophy,'' Xavi argued, ''is that we've shown talent matters more than height, physique or brute force in modern football.'' Guardiola adds the extra element. Schooled 150 metres from the stadium, a ball boy when Terry Venables won Barca the league in 1985 and midfield maestro when the Catalans won their first Champions Cup, at Wembley in 1992, he has imbued this squad with hunger. ''Pep almost has a sickness for football,'' explains Xavi. ''He lives it and studies it and is remorseless in pushing us,'' he said. How do you stay focused and hungry for more, I asked Messi a couple of weeks ago? ''Pep Guardiola is 'on us' every moment we train and play - he's right on top of you pushing you for more,'' Messi said. In celebrating the club, the team the philosophy and the moment there isn't enough room to give Messi the praise he merits.

Suffice to say that this young, small Argentinian may eventually set aside the hoary old debates about Pelé´ and Maradona. Messi is creating a strong case for being considered the greatest footballer the world has ever seen. Brutal injury or the demise of the planet before he reaches retirement are the only obstacles to formalising that accolade. Sell the car, stow away on an ocean liner, move in with the neighbours if they show Spanish football live - just get to see this Barcelona team as often as you can while the blood is throbbing through them. No one has ever played better football - don't be the sucker who misses it.