Benitez convinced Liverpool have
Barcelona panicking
tribalfooball.com - February 14, 2007
Liverpool boss Rafa Benitez believes they have Barcelona in
panic-mode ahead of their Champions League clash.
Benitez feel that Samuel Eto'o and Lionel Messi are crucial to the
Catalans in their last-16 tie with Liverpool, and Barcelona are
desperate for them to be in the side.
And that desire for the pair to play in the Nou Camp next week
could well have induced the row raging between Eto'o and manager
Frank Rijkaard.
Eto'o has been accused by the Dutch coach of refusing to come on as
a substitute last weekend against Racing Santander, and that
incident has also caused Ronaldinho to question Eto'o's team
loyalty.
Now Benitez has said: "Yes, I think they have been trying to push
these players back quickly for this game."
Benitez feels that in the two months since the draw, Barcelona have
had their problems while Liverpool have improved.
He said in a liverpoolfc.tv interview: "Everyone is very excited
about this game. They have been talking about it almost every day
for the last two months.
"Their team is really good and when the draw was made people were
saying Barcelona are the best team in the world.
"After two months we are a lot better and they have had some
problems. They need Eto'o fit, and Messi, because they haven't been
scoring a lot of goals.
"Yes they are really strong, they are not playing at the same level
but if they have Eto'o, Messi and Ronaldinho then I think they have
very good players."
Benitez reveals an understandable knowledge of the Barcelona club
and players from his days when he frequently masterminded good
results for Valencia against the Catalans.
He said: "They have some foreign players and I know Messi. I also
know Eto'o as he was in the academy at Real Madrid when I was
there, so I have good relations with them.
"It could be good for us to be underdogs. I think that it is
important for us as we will not have big pressure there."
He added: "It will be hard there, but it will be good for us to
score. Always for us to play the second leg at Anfield is important
and we need to score in Barcelona if it's possible.
"Liverpool have never lost at the Nou Camp and they have played
three times. I would like to keep this record.
"It's a difficult stadium to play in but we have confidence. We
know it will be a hard game because Barcelona is a difficult team.
We know about them, but we will try our best and I have confidence
we can do a good job.
"I have watched some of their games on TV but until now I have been
focused on our form in the Premiership. I said to my players that
we don't think about Barcelona, we focus on the Premiership. But
now we can look ahead to Barcelona."
