Barcelona vs Atletico Madrid Champions League countdown: Alves claims Barca in best form of season

Barcelona head into the Champions League quarter-final showdown with La Liga title rivals Atletico Madrid in their "best form of the season", defender Dani Alves said.

The Catalan side host the first leg on Tuesday on the back of five straight wins, a run started by eliminating Manchester City from the competition and featuring a 4-3 victory at Real Madrid to boost their domestic championship hopes.

Barca trail leaders Atletico by one point with seven games to play.

"We are now in a better state than at this time last year. We have been up and down a bit in some competitions but the team is in good spirits," Alves told a news conference on Monday.

"We are in our best form of the season and in a month everything will be decided."

Ahead of their second-leg clash with City this month there was talk of a crisis at Barcelona.
They went into the game having lost two of their previous three league matches and Alves said he was angry at the way the situation was taken out of context.

"If I look back five years ago this team was in a chaos and then 15 days ago we lost a game and it was as though it was a disaster," he said.

"People were saying Barca had lost the league and it was now between Atletico Madrid and (Real) Madrid. Then a week later Madrid are out and it is between Atletico and Barca. It is necessary to be more objective.

"Our style is always to attack. We don't try to be like normal teams but a side which influences kids and looks to play and win matches.

"To do that you have to take risks. We have been at the top of football now for the past five or six years but we know that if we win it is fantastic and if we lose it is a disaster."

The three meetings between Barca and Atletico so far this season have ended in draws, two of which came in the domestic Super Cup which the Catalans won on away goals.

"There is no point looking back at the other games now (against Atletico) as they were in other competitions and at other times," Alves said.

"We are rivals with different ways of playing, both valid and we are trying to get a good result to go into the next leg."

Atletico striker Diego Costa, Alves said, was one player he would gladly play alongside at Barcelona.

"If I could pick one player from Atletico to have in my team it would be Diego Costa for his goals and his work," the Brazilian said of the player with 25 La Liga goals to his name this season.

"It is going to be a difficult game and Atletico are a lot more than just Diego Costa. He is a great player and makes a difference for Atletico at the moment but they have other strong players.

"They have a strong structure and a difficult style to play against. It would be a mistake to just look at him."

Atletico the Robin Hood of Spain, claims Tiago 

Atletico Madrid midfielder Tiago Mendes has compared his side's ability to compete with the far richer Barcelona and Real Madrid this season to the tale of Robin Hood.

Atletico face Barcelona in the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final at the Camp Nou on Tuesday and also lead La Liga ahead of the two traditional giants of Spanish football with just seven games remaining.

Diego Simeone's men have overcome the odds despite having an annual budget of almost 400 million euros ($550 million) less than Barca and Real and Tiago believes people in crisis-hit Spain can associate with the hard work that has taken Atletico to the top.

"I think that we have our own identity. It is very easy for people to identify with us, also because in society we are living through a period of crisis and we are fighting in the Champions League with a much lower budget," he said at his side's pre-match press conference on Monday.

"That is where the similarity between Robin Hood and our team comes from."

Atletico have already faced Barca three times this season, twice in the Spanish Supercup and once in La Liga at the Vicente Calderon back in January.

All three encounters ended in draws, however four-time World Player of the Year Lionel Messi's involvement in two of those games was limited by injury and Simeone is expecting to face a much stronger Barca side at the Camp Nou this time around.

"Tomorrow will be the most difficult for sure. In the first game in the Supercup we played at home and then they weren't as strong as they are now.

"In the game in La Liga (Lionel) Messi also wasn't at 100 per cent. We are going to compete against the best Barcelona side we have faced this season.

"Tomorrow Barcelona will want to finish the tie off and we need to stop them in whatever way we can."

Since making his return from two months out due to a hamstring injury just before the latest clash at the Calderon, Messi has hit top form, scoring nine times in his last five games in all competitions.

The Argentine has now struck 36 times in as many games this season, but Atletico's Diego Costa is only three behind Messi with 33 goals so far this campaign.

And Simeone believes his star man is just as important to Atletico as Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are to Barca and Real Madrid respectively.

"Without doubt (he is just as important). Just like Ronaldo is for Real Madrid or Messi for Barcelona, Diego Costa is for us. Each one has his own style, but they are all fundamental to their teams.

"Tomorrow two players in amazing form will face off. Messi has shown that he has had a good rest in those two months that he didn't play and that is good for us Argentines ahead of the World Cup," he said with a wry smile.

Midfielder Raul Garcia is the only major absence from Simeone's squad as he is suspended so David Villa could come in to start against his former club.

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