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Madrīd strategist Jose Mourinho hopes that in the big "El Clasico" his students will finally manage to defeat the club.
Related: "El Clasico". Numbers game
After the Champions League matches in the middle of the week, all attention is now turning to Saturday, when the Madrid eleven will host their fiercest rivals from Catalonia at home. In the league table, the hosts are currently leading the opponents by three points and have one game in hand.
"In football, you can never be sure of anything, surprises always happen," said Mourinho. "At this moment, we have more confidence and we are a better team than we were last season.
"For the first time, we won all the matches in the group. In addition, in 18 games we only stumbled once, and that happened in unusual circumstances (September 18 against "Levante" - ed. note)."
Portuguese hinted at the attacking trio he will choose: "We will have Cristiano Ronaldo and Angel Di Maria, with Benzema or Higuain supporting them. Both latter will definitely play. It will be my decision."
And he added: "It's just another game. We won't have much time to think about it. The situation is completely normal. For others, these are special matches, but for us, everything is proceeding as usual."
"Real" has already won 15 consecutive matches in all competitions and equaled the best club record of all time. Meanwhile, "Barcelona" is performing strongly at home, but cannot boast of success away from home: in 6 matches, they only won twice, scoring 8 goals, but conceding as many as 7.
Barcelona midfielder Xavi admitted that beating "Real" will be difficult: "The Madrid team is in good form. They are better than before, but that doesn't mean anything. Statistics have no meaning for these matches - anything can happen."
Spanish champions' coach Pep Guardiola can boast a great record against "Real" - 7 wins out of 11. Against Mourinho, he is also doing well - three wins, three draws, and just one defeat (in the King's Cup final).
Guardiola was not inclined to talk much: "The Madrid team is always strong. We will start preparing on Wednesday, we will see what we have to do. The opponents' recent results have been excellent, so we will have to play very good football."
There is great anticipation for the showdown between Lionel Messi ("Barcelona") and Cristiano Ronaldo ("Real"), who are considered to be the best footballers on the planet. Both of them have scored 17 goals in the Spanish league.
However, Messi has performed much better in the matches between them - in "El Clasico" he scored 13 goals in 15 games, while Ronaldo scored three times in 9 matches.
"It is very important for us to achieve a good result," Messi said. "It would set us up positively for the rest of the season. If we fail, we won't have much time to rest, as a crucial trip to Japan and the Club World Cup awaits us next week."
