Xavi refuses to accept favourites tag in Wednesday's Clásico

Speaking ahead of the Copa del Rey semi-final second leg against Real Madrid (Wednesday 9pm CEST), coach Xavi Hernández said  “our goal is to do what we did in the Super Cup and the league game at home. That’s our ideal game. But Madrid are the Liga and European champions, so it’s not easy to control the game against them. We’ll try to do it but in the first leg they did it better than us. "

Madrid still favourites

Hence he insists that despite Barça having a one-goal head start, the all-whites are still the favourites to make the final in Seville.

“I think they’re be set on getting revenge because they’ve lost the last three games against us" he told his pre-game press conference. "They’re hurt. But they’re a team that always competes so it doesn’t change much.”

“We might try something different to surprise them. I don’t think they will. They have a very clear idea about their game and they do it very well … I certainly wouldn’t say we have the measure against then. They have every chance of winning and are very good at games like this where they need to mount a comeback. I still think they’re the favourites. They are very hard to beat over two legs.”

“I call on the fans to come and make themselves heard at Spotify Camp Nou. We are really up for this game, but a packed stadium will raise the pressure on the opposition.”

Focused on football

“The squad take no notice of what is being said in the news" he continued. "We only talk about football. Anyone can see that we are playing much better than we did last season, anyone who denies that is just trying to be mean. What we want to do is turn that good form into trophies."

"The absence of players like Pedri and Frenkie de Jong takes some of the polish out of our game when we have the ball, but we will still be basing our game on use of possession to win. We certainly won't be playing for a draw. Madrid are an aggressive side and we'll need to be ready for that."

On individuals, one name he was asked about was Gavi, who he says "is an extraordinarily mature player for his age. He wins a lot of duels and plays with the kind of passion that I hope he never loses."

And he was also invited to compare Lewandowski and Benzema, who he claims "are in the top three or so strikers in the world. Robert understands our positional play. Benzema appears everywhere and has so much talent. Perhaps Robert is a bit more physical.”