Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers has branded Real Madrid as the best team in the world ahead of the Champions League showdown between the two teams at the Santiago Bernabeu.

This is the second meeting between the two teams in the group stages and one that will go a long way into deciding the progress Liverpool have made. The Premier League outfit come to Spain in search of a victory in order to preserve their objective of reaching the next stage of the Champions League. The defeats against FC Basel and Madrid in the previous rounds have put them on the bank of exit.

Madrid are one of the inform teams in Europe after having managed 10 games on the bounce. They have also scored an astonishing 41 goals during this period.

In contrast, Liverpool have managed just three victories and have scored 10 goals, and the players will be coming straight from a Wedding in Derbyshire, with one of their coaches getting married.

A win over Madrid will not only help Liverpool put behind the poor form in the league but will also give them a major conference ahead of the match with Chelsea on Saturday. Rodgers, who witnessed his team suffer a 3-0 defeat in the previous meeting between the two teams, says that Liverpool will be looking for a victory in this away match.

“It is nowhere near as bad as people make out. What has been the frustration has been the mistakes and sloppy goals. I think we showed in the previous game, although the score was 3-0, we can still have moments when we can hurt Real Madrid and that will be the idea. We are certainly not coming here as a team expected to lose and then look at the other games as games to qualify. For us, we see it as an opportunity. We still very much have qualification in our hands,” said Rodgers.