Iniesta played a starring role as the Catalans demolished Getafe 6-1 at the Camp Nou on Sunday and Balague says the 28-year-old's grace on the pitch puts him above the three-time World Player of the Year.
"I think Iniesta is better than Zidane," said Balague.
"He scores a similar amount of goals and has a similar influence to what Zidane had at Juventus and Real Madrid.
"But he is more elegant and has more league titles (five with Barcelona) than Zidane (two with Juventus and one with Real)."
Balague continued: "The reason Iniesta has been playing so well over the last seven months stems from when he told Tito Vilanova at the start of the season that he thought he could help the team more if he was playing more centrally rather than on the left.
"Tito then said: 'Jordi Alba is coming in anyway (at left-back) so you can do whatever you like'. Now he is coming inside and his leadership is growing."
However, Barcelona's victory over Getafe was their eighth game in a row without a clean sheet - they last recorded a shutout in a 5-0 Copa del Rey win over Cordoba on January 10.
And Graham Hunter feels defensive frailties could cost Vilanova's charges in the coming weeks.
"Barcelona looked so elegant against Getafe, but they did not get a clean sheet and game after game at full-back they have made mistakes," said Hunter, via a video link from Valencia.
Sharpen up
"It wasn't a fixture that made them match sharp and battle hardened for what lies ahead (AC Milan in the Champions League and Real Madrid in the Copa del Rey); Milan are probably capable of scoring at the Camp Nou and Madrid have shown they are very comfortable there.
"If this is a Treble-winning Barcelona side and they are as good as people are saying they are, they are going to have to sharpen up at the back and not concede goals in any situation."
The Spanish heavyweights kicked-off at lunchtime at the weekend so that the clash could be beamed onto the TV screens of the Asian market, and Balague says that while Barca president Sandro Rosell was nonplussed by the schedule, most of the Camp Nou faithful loved it.
"Rossel understands that part of the philosophy of Barcelona is watching lower and B teams in the day time and seeing what's behind the way they play and then the first team in the evening, and he felt the early kick-off destroyed that," said the Revista regular.
"Ninety nine per cent of people thought it was great, though; they could watch the game, have some paella, have a siesta and watch some more football!
"There were also plenty of kids involved and Barcelona got the third highest attendance of the season for a match against Getafe."
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