I used to live in Spain and went to Barca games fairly regularly, I've been there 8 or 9 times. The old San Mames in Bilbao was a proper stadium. The Nou Camp is just big, its really tatty and run down.
Madrid responded to all the press hype over that and pointed out that they have over 70 scouts in Europe and they have a dossier on pretty much every player in the top flight of each league. They had looked at him but they evaluate about 150 players each weekend, it was just the daily record that couldn't get their heads around it.