the most powerful drug trafficking and money laundering organization law enforcement agents say they have ever seen. >> there it is. >> holy ( bleep ). >> logan: given unprecedented access, our "60 minutes" team was sworn to secrecy until tonight. >> we have prada. we have chanel. we have dolce e gabbana. we have versace. we have burberry. >> stahl: luxottica started here as a small tool shop in agordo, a dot of a town in the italian alps, when frames were still made of mountain goat horns. do you have any idea how many people in the world are wearing your glasses right now? >> at least half a billion. >> simon: walking into camp nou on a night like this is entering the cathedral of football. moments before the teams come on

to the pitch, the crowd rises like a tidal wave. ( crowd singing ) some 99,000 fans sing the barca anthem. the guy walking in last is lionel messi. he is the best player in the world-- many say, the best ever. >> here's lionel messi. still messi. and he has a classic in the clasico! >> i am steve kroft. >> i am lesley stahl. >> i am morley safer. >> i am bob simon. >> i am lara logan. >> i am scott pelley. those stories tonight on "60 minutes." i'm the next american success story. working for a company

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>> logan: we're about to take you behind the scenes of a three-year investigation that took down the most powerful drug trafficking organization in law enforcement history-- bigger than both the cali and the medellin cartels combined, more powerful than the infamous pablo escobar. this was a colombian cocaine empire with a reach so vast and profits so great, it became known as "the supercartel." sworn to secrecy until we first broadcast this story last fall, our "60 minutes" team was given unprecedented access to the investigation as it was unfolding. colombian national police worked alongside agents from ice, the u.s. immigration and customs enforcement agency, whose job, among other things, is to prevent contraband from moving across u.s. borders.

the amount of cocaine and money the supercartel smuggled was incomprehensible, and it took authorities by surprise. u.s. ice agents first got a glimpse of what they were up against when they arrived here in september, 2009, the sprawling pacific coast port of buenaventura, colombia. the agents got a tip to be on the lookout for cargo containers of fertilizer arriving from mexico. they were stunned by what they found. >> there it is! >> holy ( bleep ). >> logan: shrink-wrapped bundles of money. this one is $700,000 u.s. in $20 bills. as they searched through more containers, both here and in mexico, they found staggering amounts of cash. more and more money, $41 million in that first seizure alone. you'd never actually seen anything like it?

>> luis sierra: no, we'd never seen containers full of cash. >> logan: luis sierra was directing the ice operation that day. he told us that, until then, tales of containers full of cash were just a myth. >> logan: how much space physically does that kind of money take up? >> sierra: $41 million is... is probably waist-deep in maritime shipping container, waist-deep of cash. >> logan: how long did it take you to count it? >> sierra: it took us 30 days to count. >> logan: teams of agents worked eight hours a day with colombian police counting the money inside this heavily secured bank in the capital, bogota. and that was just the beginning. >> sierra: the amounts of cash they move is unfathomable. it... we couldn't believe it. and shipments that we seized, that was a routine shipment for them. that was... that was nothing. >> logan: a routine shipment. >> sierra: routine. monthly, weekly-- that wasn't a

once-a-year or a one-time shot. they were... that was standard business. >> logan: how much money are you talking about? >> sierra: hundreds of millions, if not billions. >> logan: of dollars? >> sierra: of dollars. being smuggled around the world into colombia. >> logan: these shipments were just one method of smuggling cash. they also hid money in vehicles, luggage and furniture. >> sierra: we've never seen the likes of it, you know, an organization operating on that scale. >> logan: explain to me how this cartel would work. is it fair to say it was like a conglomerate? >> sierra: it was run like a sophisticated business, a fortune 500 company. they had... they had their c.e.o.s, they had their vice presidents. >> logan: was it very compartmentalized? >> sierra: yeah, they've learned. and this particular cartel, you could be involved in transportation, but you didn't know who the c.e.o.s were or even whose cocaine you were smuggling.

so no one really knew what the other hand was doing except for two or three people at the top. >> logan: the enormous scale of the cartel's operations was unprecedented, and so was the audacious plan u.s. ice agents and colombian police used to bring the men at the top to justice. they did it by following the money, starting with the cash from that first seizure three years ago. it led them to a trio of ruthless kingpins who ruled the super cartel for a decade. luis caicedo was the mastermind, a former police investigator so secretive he was known as "the ghost." julio lozano directed the group's powerful alliance with mexican cartels. and claudio silva managed the cartel's assets, worth billions of dollars. ice agents told us the super cartel supplied 42% of colombian cocaine in the u.s., some 900 tons over seven years, much of

it grown here in the verdant coca fields that blanket central colombia. we went with colombian police commandos, called "junglas," and u.s. ice agents on a series of raids to destroy drug labs linked to the super cartel. across streams, through dense vegetation, the junglas led us toward a crude structure hidden beneath the jungle canopy. in colombia, steve kleppe is the u.s. immigration and customs enforcement agent in charge. how important is a lab like this to the cartel? >> steve kleppe: it's tremendously important. in the supply chain, this is step one. and you'll find these type of clandestine labs closest to the coca fields themselves. >> logan: the piles of coca leaves you see here are the source of the cartel's vast fortune. inside these big barrels, the

leaves are soaked with gasoline and toxic chemicals to make unrefined cocaine. there are thousands of labs like this across colombia. they're easy to build and easy to conceal. the commandos set a series of explosive charges throughout the makeshift structure, and directed us to a nearby coca field where we watched the jungle lab go up in smoke. it's a tiny but critical part of the super cartel's global enterprise. 200 miles to the north, the cartel bosses ran their daily operations from a string of small cafes and coffee shops in an upscale neighborhood in bogota. that's where luis sierra and other ice agents shadowed them for months. how difficult was it to run surveillance on this cartel? >> sierra: i'd say this was the most difficult surveillance that we've ever seen. these guys were so anonymous, they were like ghosts.

trying to identify them during the surveillance was extremely difficult. >> logan: in face-to-face meetings at the cafes, the bosses issued orders to their lieutenants. >> sierra: these guys essentially existed off the radar, people who didn't lead typical... what we think of as typical drug trafficker, money launderer lifestyles. very low profile, low key. driving anonymous cars, living in small apartments. it was amazing that they lived this lifestyle, and that made it harder for us to identify them. >> logan: so what's the point of having all the money, then, if you can't use it? >> sierra: yeah, i remember asking one of the members of the cartel that question, because we couldn't figure it out. and the answer that person gave us was, for the power. >> logan: it all began to unravel when this ice agent turned one of the cartel's most trusted money men into his

secret informant. the agent was only allowed to talk to us if we concealed his identity, because he still works undercover. what would happen to you if your cover was blown? >> agent: they'll probably retaliate. >> logan: and retaliation would probably mean what? >> agent: maybe just a hit on your life or, you know, family. you never know. >> logan: can you describe the... the kind of guys that you were dealing with? >> agent: they were well- educated, well-dressed, well- spoken. you'd be surprised how young these guys are. some of them even had a master's degrees. so they operated legitimate businesses, and, on the side, they were drug traffickers. and, you know, even their families didn't know what they did. you'd never think if you saw them out on the street that they were drug traffickers. >> logan: were they feared? >> agent: yes. they... they were feared just because they had so much money, so much power that, you know, people didn't want to mess with them. >> logan: in a daring ploy, the undercover ice agent infiltrated the top tier of the cartel in colombia.

>> agent: they thought i was just a money guy who, you know, was facilitating the money pickup for the organization. so they thought i was a member. >> logan: for months, the u.s. agent helped direct the super cartel's cash and cocaine deliveries right into the hands of police and his fellow agents in more than a dozen countries around the world, from ecuador to morocco to the netherlands. in one operation, this semi- submersible built by the super cartel was intercepted near the galapagos islands. it was carrying a ton and a half of cocaine. in another, this suitcase stuffed with their cash was picked up in spain by an undercover ice agent. meanwhile, back in colombia, authorities wiretapped the phones of the bosses' friends, wives and mistresses. the ice agents and police methodically began cutting off the cartel's main tentacles. >> agent: we started with the

boss, and, from there on, we just went down. and we actually dismantled the whole organization from the suppliers to, you know, to the people who picked up the money, who did the payoffs, you know, to the people who actually transported the narcotics to the people who received the narcotics. >> logan: the first of the bosses to fall was luis caicedo, the ghost. he had fled from colombia to what he thought was safety in argentina. ice agent steve kleppe was there when police moved in. >> kleppe: his look at the time of arrest was just of shock. >> logan: did you look into his eyes? were you right there? >> kleppe: yes. he was hooded at the time. and i went to make positive i.d. of him and... and take some pictures. so we removed the hood, and the photo i took with a camera phone. >> agent: that was the biggest victory, you know, of the investigation, arresting don lucho in argentina. >> logan: were you there at the scene? >> agent: i was at a safe house.

but once he was apprehended, we did go out there. >> logan: next to fall was claudio silva. he had been hiding at a remote farm deep inside the jungle. our "60 minutes" team was there in may 2010 when police loaded him into a helicopter. a cell phone call to his mistress had given him away. the mob boss, one of the most feared and powerful leaders of the colombian cocaine empire, cried when he was captured. the last of the bosses, julio lozano, surrendered to ice agents in panama six months later. >> kleppe: we destroyed their infrastructure. we destroyed their business. the remnants that are out there now have to scramble to try to regain whatever footing they can, certainly not on the scale that they had. and those who are out there still are looking over their shoulder.

>> logan: but ice agents acknowledge they only got a tiny fraction of the super cartel's cocaine and their cash. if you look at the big picture, there's still tons and tons of cocaine flooding into the united states. so what difference does this make? >> sierra: i'd say we took off the most prolific organization in terms of bulk cash smuggling and drug trafficking. of course, there's people ready to step in and take their place. but for an organization to become that sophisticated again, as sophisticated as this, is going to be very difficult. >> logan: ice agents and colombian police are still following leads, picking at the bones of the super cartel. all three cartel bosses are now in custody in the u.s. waiting to be sentenced.

>> cbs money watch update sponsored by: >> . >> glor: good evening. oil prices are at a four-month high. in part over concern the conflict in syria could spread. boeing unveils its stretch 878 dreamliner with $30 billion worth of new orders. and "man of steel" took in $113 million to win the weekend box office. i'm jeff glor, cbs news.

>> stahl: for many of us, summer means a new pair of sunglasses, but bet your eyes popped when you saw the price tag. if you don't go to places like wal-mart or costco, you could easily be spending hundreds and hundreds of dollars for a pair that cost just $30 ten years ago. talk about sticker shock!

and it's not as though things have changed that much; they're still made of a couple of pieces of plastic or wire, some screws and glass. why should a pair of glasses cost more than an ipad? well, as we first reported in october, one answer is because one company controls a big chunk of the business. never has there been so much choice-- ray-bans, oakleys; glasses for running and skiing and even reading. ( laughs ) a staggering variety of colors and designers. you'd think the competition would force the prices down. wow, look at that. one reason it hasn't is a little-known but very big italian company called luxottica. if you own a nice pair of specs or shades, they're probably theirs. luxottica is the biggest eyewear company on earth. it shuns publicity, but c.e.o. andrea guerra invited us in for

a look, and it was eye-opening. do you have any idea how many people in the world are wearing your glasses right now? >> andrea guerra: at least half a billion are wearing our glasses now. >> stahl: luxottica started here as a small tool shop in agordo, a dot of a town in the italian alps, when frames were still made of mountain goat horns. this was the factory in 1961. this is what it looks like today. last year, luxottica made some 75 million pairs of sunglasses and optical frames. they don't make prescription lenses. we saw mountains and mountains of glasses in boxes headed to china, india, brazil, and above all, to the u.s. but they're very expensive. they can be very expensive. >> guerra: they can. this is one of the very few objects that are 100%

functional, 100% aesthetical, and they need to be on your face for 15 hours a day. not easy, and there's a lot of work behind them. >> stahl: luxottica's product manager isabella sola explained that the company revolutionized how we see glasses. you think i look cool? >> isabella sola: yes, i think so. >> stahl: i think i look cool, too. it wasn't that long ago that glasses were uncool. you only wore them if you absolutely had to. i can remember, not that many years ago, my mother telling me that men will never ask me out if i wear my glasses. i was to go blind if i wanted dates. but luxottica took this medical device and turned it into high fashion, by making deals to conceive and create high- quality, stylish specs for nearly every brand and label you can think of. >> sola: we have prada.

we have chanel. we have dolce e gabbana. we have versace. we have burberry. we have ralph lauren. we have tiffany. we have bulgari. >> stahl: they're not even called "glasses" anymore; they're "eyewear." do people really wear this? >> sola: yes. >> stahl: once glasses became "face jewelry," luxottica could charge a hefty markup. but you know something-- i know that there are some less expensive glasses that look very similar to the very expensive. for example, this is your vogue line, which is not that expensive. >> sola: yes. >> stahl: and this is... >> sola: coach. >> stahl: coach, which is much more expensive. if two women walked down the street with these on... >> sola: yes, they almost look the same. >> stahl: almost the same. >> sola: but it's almost; it's not the same. >> stahl: not the same because of details on the frames like the little chanel cs, polo ponies, or tiffany blue.

luxottica wouldn't tell us their mark-up, but glasses like these can sell for up to 20 times what they cost to make. and all the glasses are designed by luxottica. so you design thousands of pairs of glasses. >> sola: we do, yes. >> stahl: where does tiffany come into it? >> sola: tiffany comes in at every stage, basically. >> stahl: the fashion houses send in sketches of their new collections as inspiration. and down on the factory floor, you can see the work that goes into differentiating the brands-- plain plastic temples go through a painting machine and come out "versace," stones are inserted one by one into the dolce gabbana, and leather is carefully threaded for that chanel-bag look. if people begin to know that chanel glasses were designed by luxottica, would it change the way they think about chanel glasses? >> guerra: you know, that would

be totally wrong, that would be crazy. >> stahl: but why isn't the luxottica name a brand name? are you in any way hiding it? >> guerra: hiding it? >> stahl: yeah. >> guerra: not at all. we are listed. >> stahl: listed on the new york stock exchange, where luxottica shares are soaring. the company raked in $9 billion last year, but their best-seller wasn't a fancy fashion house label. it was a brand they outright own: ray-ban. originally made by bausch and lomb for the u.s. army, since j.f.k., nearly every president has worn them, not to mention tom cruise in "risky business" and "top gun." but the brand was poorly managed, cheapened, and eventually put up for sale. the italians bought it in 1999, and had a strategy to turn things around. >> guerra: we stopped selling

sunglasses from ray-ban for more or less a year. >> stahl: when you bought it, you could buy them for, i don't even know how little money. >> guerra: $29. >> stahl: $29 at the drug store, at a gas station, and you took them off the market. >> guerra: we refurbished everything. >> stahl: and made them upscale- - today, those $29 pairs can cost $150 and more, and ray-ban is the top-selling sunglass brand in the world. when americans go to buy these glasses, i'll bet 99% think they're buying an american brand. >> guerra: it is an american brand. what's wrong with it? i mean, it's an american brand owned by italians. i think the world is... the world is this. >> stahl: it is the world, and we don't realize it, that's the thing. before i started working on this story, i'd never heard the name luxottica. >> guerra: yeah. >> stahl: which is all the more surprising since luxottica not only bought ray-ban, they also bought lenscrafters, the largest eyewear retail chain in north

america. so now they make them and they sell them. it's great for business, but is it great for the consumer? i asked lenscrafters' president, mark weikel. how many non-luxottica brands do you sell here? >> weikel: we probably have a few brands that aren't luxottica. >> stahl: mostly luxottica? >> weikel: mostly luxottica, yeah. >> stahl: so, since luxottica owns you, does the consumer get a break on glasses made by them in lenscrafters? >> weikel: what the customer gets at lenscrafters is a variety of services and products, including this broad assortment of frames... >> stahl: mark, you're not answering my question. i'm asking if you charge less for frames made by luxottica since you're the same company. >> weikel: i think every competitor, every retail optical brand determines what their pricing is on whatever their brands are. >> stahl: that's a no. consumers do not get a break.

at lenscrafters, the average cost for a pair of frames and lenses is about $300. you may think, well, there's choice in the mall for other glasses. but luxottica doesn't only own the top eyewear chain in the country; it owns another large chain, pearle vision, and oliver peoples, and several boutique chains. and it runs target optical and sears optical. and we're not done-- luxottica also owns sunglass hut, the largest sunglass chain in the world. so, is there a free market in eyewear? >> brett arends: no, i don't think there really is. i think one company has excessive dominance in the market. >> stahl: smartmoney.com columnist brett arends says the appearance of variety is an optical illusion. >> arends: the reality is, it's like... you know, it's like pro- wrestling competition. and it's actually fake competition. >> stahl: consider what happened to oakley, the world-famous maker of advanced sports eyewear.

>> arends: oakley was a big competitor, and they had a fight with luxottica. and luxottica basically said, "we're dropping you from our stores." and oakley... >> stahl: they refused to sell their glasses in their stores. >> arends: yeah, there was a dispute about pricing, and they dropped oakley from the stores, and oakley's stock price collapsed. how is oakley going to reach the consumer if they can't get their sunglasses in sunglass hut? >> guerra: there were some issues between the two companies in the beginning of the 2000s. but both of them understood that it was better to go along. >> stahl: better to let you buy them? >> guerra: i wouldn't say this. we merged with oakley in 2007. >> stahl: you bought oakley. they tried to compete and they lost, and then you bought them. >> guerra: i understand your theory, but they understood that life was better together. >> stahl: so now, luxottica owns the two top premium sunglass brands in the world, ray-ban and oakley.

but luxottica points out there are other players. who's your biggest competitor in the united states? >> guerra: you could say wal-mart. >> stahl: also costco and emerging online companies like warby parker. but other competitors told us luxottica has them in a chokehold-- if you make glasses, you want to be in their stores; and if you have stores, you want to sell ray-bans. so luxottica can set the prices as high as it wants. >> arends: luxottica's dominance, it's what's called a "price maker," which means that essentially it can set prices and other people will follow in its wake. >> stahl: which, he says, is why glasses in general cost so much, even at your local optician's. >> arends: the whole point of a luxury brand is to persuade people to pay $200 for a product that cost $30 to make. >> stahl: well, let me show you something. why is it any different than my shoe? >> arends: well, to some extent, there's actually a lot of comparisons. the difference is that the

entire shoe industry isn't made by one company. and the same company doesn't also own all the shoe stores. >> stahl: you'd think, well, surely, insurance companies covering vision would complain. but guess what? luxottica also owns the nation's second largest vision-care plan, eye-med, covering eye exams and glasses. what don't you own? >> guerra: a lot of things. >> stahl: not really. >> guerra: ( laughs ) >> stahl: you seem to, really. why not combine everything under one name? >> guerra: i think people love diversities, people love to have different brands, people love to have different experiences. >> stahl: it's an illusion of choice if you're all owned by the same company. >> guerra: i think this is totally wrong. the question is, what kind of choice consumer has. it's not a question of how many you own. >> stahl: how does the consumer benefit from all this? your prices are still high. >> guerra: if you go to a shoe

company, would you say that their prices are high? >> stahl: you're trying to tell me it's all worth all that money. >> guerra: everything is worth what people are ready to pay. >> stahl: and you know what? he's right. it seems people are ready to pay-- a lot. i bet they cost a fortune >> they're not too expensive. >> stahl: they cost almost $400. with prescription lenses, the price could jump to $600 or more. this is it.

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>> simon: every once in a while, a team comes along that stands out in professional sports not just for its victories, but for the beauty with which it plays the game.

barcelona's football club-- barca, as it's known to fans around the world-- is just such a team. the secret? many point to its youth academy, which recruits boys often no more than seven years old, gives them a rigorous education and teaches them barca's unique style. in some matches this season, all 11 players on the field were graduates of the football academy. since we first reported this story in january, barca suffered a few setbacks; barca's coach had a relapse of cancer which kept him from the field for months, and the team endured a devastating defeat in world's most prestigious club tournament, the champion's league. but fans certainly aren't writing barca off; they remain some of the most dedicated in the world. it's the biggest day of the year at camp nou, barcelona's iconic stadium-- the match, barca

versus real madrid, called "el clasico." john carlin, who writes a weekly football column for a leading spanish newspaper, says this is as good as the sport gets. i've heard barca referred to as the best team in the world. do you believe that? >> john carlin: oh, yes. i mean, right at this particular moment in historical time, barcelona football club is, without a shadow of a doubt, the best football team in the world. and what is more, there are a lot of people, a lot of serious people in the game, who believe that this is the greatest football team that has ever been seen since the... the rules of the game were drawn up in a london pub in 1862 or 1863. >> simon: and this is avoiding superlatives. walking into camp nou on a night like this is entering the cathedral of football. moments before the teams come on to the pitch, the crowd rises like a tidal wave. ♪ ♪

some 99,000 fans sing the barca anthem. ♪ ♪ >> simon: "som i serem"-- "we are and we will be." the guy walking in last is lionel messi. he is the best player in the world-- many say, the best ever. last month, barca won its 22nd spanish league title, its fourth in five years. this is how they've done it. well, more than anything else, this is how messi has done it. >> here's lionel messi. still messi. and he has a classic in the clasico. a touch of brilliance from lionel messi! >> simon: yes, messi is barca's superstar, but there are others. >> drifting. driving. david villa!

3-0! game over! ( cheers and applause ) >> simon: what has made this barca team so extraordinary? it all started in this 18th- century farmhouse called "la masia." in the 1970s, it was transformed into a soccer training camp for children. barca scouts looked everywhere for talented kids. any boy over the age of 11 was eligible. the lucky few came here, got a free education and soccer training. the dream of every kid was to cross the street just a minute away to the barca stadium. today, 17 of the 25 players on barca's first team came through the system. the masia moved to a sparkling new facility two years ago and now looks like any other international prep school-- communal living, lots of carbohydrates. and after a long day at school, there's homework with tutors and training and more training.

and then, a little recreation, of a sort. they don't get to bed before 11:00. cesc fabergas came to la masia when he was ten years old. what was it like being a ten- year-old in this place? >> cesc fabregas: i was very lucky, and i'm not just talking about the football, i'm talking about manners, values, education at school. the only thing is that you have to study a lot. >> simon: pretty strict, huh? >> fabregas: yeah, they are very strict. but it's worth it. >> simon: what if you really like to have a good time and go out in downtown and... >> fabregas: you'll be out very, very quick. >> simon: but look at these kids when they are doing what they came here to do. these tykes are eight years old. they do not mess around. they are being taught the barca doctrine-- keep passing that ball. caress it. learn to love it. they are magicians in the

making. here's a future goalie. always scores of soccer senoras in the stands. ( cheers and applause ) >> simon: "look, ma, i scored. but i lost my shoe." it seems like every boy's idea of fun, but it's very hard work, more seminary than summer camp. star defender gerard piqué started here when he was eight. masia has been called a football factory. is that unkind? >> gerard piquñ: i don't know, i think "factory"... i don't really like this name. no, because, finally, we are humans, we are people. >> simon: sure, but the objective of masia is to create good football players. >> piquñ: yeah, definitely, that's for sure. and everyone knows that. >> simon: because of the masia system, these days, barca doesn't have to spend a fortune buying good players. barca breeds them.

most have played together since they were kids. they know each other's moves. here's pique. there's cesc fabergas. today, when they pass, there's always someone there to receive because there's always been someone there. and the goals? they come every which way, making the commentators sound like they've just seen the messiah. >> like a lightning bolt from zeus's hand, off alves' boot to the back of the net. messi for alves. >> simon: a header. >> goal! >> it starts way deep, but it's pure barcelona. >> simon: when barca plays at its best, it's like watching a ballet. poetry in motion. >> messi! bueno, bueno, bueno, bueno, bueno, bueno, bueno, bueno, bueno, bueno, bueno, >> carlin: symphonies. beautiful paintings. whatever you like, absolutely.

i mean, i think that, you know, some of the plays will be viewed with aesthetic delight, not just decades hence, but hundreds of years hence. there will be museums, as there are now museums for picasso here in barcelona, and people will "ooh" and "ah." >> messi, again takes the wall pass. and again! absolutely brilliant. that goal was a work of art! >> simon: today's picasso in barcelona is that kid messi. he came to the masia from argentina at the age of 13. today, they call him "la pulga," the "flea." no one can shake him off. >> look at this from messi. look at this run. he leaves one, he leaves two for dead. takes on three, takes on four. beats the goalkeeper! >> simon: the ball often seems magically attached to his foot. >> this little man is an absolute genius. >> simon: like all geniuses,

messi makes it look easy. now, when you score a goal today, are you just as happy as when you scored a goal when you were 11 years old? >> lionel messi ( translated ): in the same way. i enjoy football in the same way i did when i was a little kid. and i love playing. i love winning the games. i love scoring. and i keep loving it all. >> simon: yeah. but when you score a goal today, nobody's surprised. everyone expects you to score a goal. when you first came here, when you started playing, it was a big surprise when you scored a goal. >> messi: yeah, that's true. in that regard, it was a big change. >> simon: and barca has changed from what was once something of a neighborhood club to a global franchise. it boasts the second highest grossing nike store in the world, and it's worth an estimated $2.6 billion. its owners? you're looking at them.

not some rich mogul; it's a not- for-profit owned by the club's members-- 170,000 of them, each one with a vote. sandro rosell was elected barca's president in 2010. he has belonged to the club since he was six years old. the slogan is "more than a club." what does it mean? >> sandro rosell: well, it's a feeling. it's part of our lives. it's within our heart. it's something that is part of your culture. and that's the reason it's more than a club. it's not only 11 players playing against 11 players and winning or losing. it's much more than this. it's... it's something that is within your blood. >> simon: barca has been in gerard piqué's blood for three generations. today, he's one of the pillars of the team. he took us to a hallowed place in camp nou, the locker room. a lot of very famous people have been before you, huh? >> pique: yeah.

>> simon: and every locker is a monument of sorts. the names of players who came before are never erased. let's see your locker. >> piquñ: you have maradona, one of the best players in the world. >> simon: that's diego maradona, the great argentine player from the 1980s. one minute-- when you go to your locker every day, you're looking at the name maradona. >> piquñ: yeah. >> simon: some of football's most legendary figures have also booted up in this room: the dutchman, johan cruyff; the bulgarian, stoichkov... ( cheers and applause ) the brazilian, ronaldinho. but for all the titans that have come through camp nou, no team in the past has had as many spectacular successes or has excited the world of soccer as much as today's crop. gerard pique's debut season was 2008. >> piquñ: we won the league, we won the cup.

and this was the european championship. >> simon: pretty good year. >> piquñ: the best year in... in the history of the club. never happens in the history that you win the three titles. >> simon: the road to every match leads through a long tunnel. some players stop here. >> piquñ: so here we have, like, a little church and... >> simon: a chapel in... >> piquñ: a chapel. some of the players, before the game, they pray. >> simon: how would you describe the atmosphere here before a game? >> piquñ: a lot of nervous, a lot of tension. >> pleasantries now, unpleasantries quite often when they kick off. >> simon: and it's pretty quiet here now. i bet it isn't quiet when you walk out, huh? >> piquñ: no, it's not. it's incredible your first time here. >> this is heart-stopping. >> piquñ: if you think that's heart-stopping, look at this from gerard piqué. >> xavi, he has found piqué! and gerard piqué finally breaks through the inter barricades!

>> simon: and remember, he's a defender. scoring goals is not normally a defender's job. great football-- but for barca fans, so much more. it is an affirmation of who they are-- catalans. barcelona is the capitol of catalonia, which, on the map, is a province of spain. but many here want to secede from spain, form their own state. the barca players are their soldiers. >> rosell: what this club represents to us, it represents to be part of a country called catalonia. then i would say, yes, we are quite different. >> simon: "country called catalonia." it's not in the united nations. >> rosell: not yet. who knows? >> simon: over the last few months, barca fans have been acting like they're at a political rally. during every match, the stadium erupts with cries for independence.

>> independencia! >> simon: the politics may be particular to a piece of southern europe; the football belongs to the world. ( cheers and applause ) >> carlin: you go to... to a remote village in northern madagascar, i bet you anything you like that you will find kids there wearing barca shirts. and if you ask people, "who is messi?" you know, a bunch of kids, everyone will raise their hand and start screaming and shouting, so... >> simon: they've never heard of derek jeter? >> carlin: i'm afraid not. ( laughs ) >> simon: americans will become messi fans soon enough. he is, after all, only 25 and just keeps on getting better. >> messi has a decoy in iniesta. iniesta back to messi. >> oh, my goodness. >> goal 86! >> simon: last december, he broke the world record for scoring the most goals in a calendar year. >> go to 60minutesovertime.com to hear what la masia teaches kids about soccer and life.

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>> we're on week three of our journey to find america's best amateur baker. so far we've seen delicious cookies, amazing macaroons, and even s'mores made from scratch. really, i saw it with my own eyes. welcome to the "the american baking competition."