When you consider the multi-billion-dollar world that International Soccer has become in the last five to 10 years there is something rather refreshing about a small regional club gaining success on a national basis especially when you gain this success at the expense of some of the much larger supposedly more glamorous and probably more indebted competition.

Such is the case in Spain with the recent emergence within the last five to 10 years of Deportivo la Corunna as a team to be reckoned with within La Liga. Especially when this success is gained at the expense of La Liga's (and Europe's) most glamorous twosome, Barcelona FC and Real Madrid FC.

Now this article is not meant as any form of criticism of Barcelona and Real rather an articulation of how refreshing it is to see how occasionally, even in the new Millennium, David still has the power to slay Goliath from time to time.

Now this isn't just some story of the boys from up the road managing to beat the bigger guys from time to time. You have to get an accurate picture of what exactly we are talking about here before you can really begin to appreciate exactly what has happened.

This article is also not mean to try and belittle the very real success that the management at Deportivo have achieved with what could safely be described as a fraction of the budget spent by the ?big two?. I refer to Deportivo as ?the little guys? more as a term of affection rather than an insult.

As far as Deportivo la Corunna are concerned they really arrived on the Spanish scene in the 1999 ? 2000 season when they actually had the temerity to beat Barcelona and Real Madrid and win La Liga for the very first time in the clubs history.

All of this less than 10 years from when in 1991, the then Deportivo President Lendoiro claimed ?Madrid, Barcelona, here we are!? when the team achieved promotion to the Primera Division.

At this point people Deportivo had never won La Liga or a Copa (the Spanish Football Cup) or had never before played a European match.

Not bad for a club from the so called lowly background of Galicia and as I say, a success that has been funded on a fraction of the budgets spent by the larger clubs.

I keep repeating this fact and perhaps if we take a look at what exactly I mean people will get some sort of idea we are talking about here. Both Real Madrid and Barcelona are not just mere football clubs. To use a mixture of metaphors they are the twin 600 lb gorillas in a cage dominated by smaller chimpanzees. Perhaps an unfortunate analogy but one that perhaps indicates the difference in size compared to the competition.

In 2001 it is alleged that Real Madrid were in debt in the region of $250 million when the then president Florentino Perez took over as President from his predecessor Lorenzo Sanz.

Now whether this figure is true or not but a brief inspection of their accounts indicated that of that debt, $122 plus salaries had been laid out to buy the services of two players, Louis Figo the Portuguese international and Zinidane Zidane the mercurial French international Captain.

To present a challenge to any club that has the ability to ?splash the cash? as Real can do when they want warrants notice but to do it with only a fraction of the spend deserves accolades and that is what Deportivo did in the 1999-2000 season when they actually finished the season as Primera Liga Champions.

So once again, lets here it for the little guys!