Barcelona comes into today’s match after a strong win against Getafe last week. While giving up a single goal, Barcelona delivered four of itself from Lionel Messi, David Villa, and Adriano.

But in a statement this week, Dmitriy Kombarov told Spartak Moscow news that the team’s only chance to win is by first neutralizing Messi today. “We must try to exclude him from the game, as far as that’s possible. We need to stay tight to Barca all over the pitch and win the individual battles. That’s the recipe.”

It remains unclear how Kombarov intends to do that when Messi takes to the field today. But he also tells news “We can’t have anyone giving them an easy time, we must fight to the end from the first second. Personally, I’m totally calm and don’t feel any nerves: the big names don’t scare me, they mobilize me.” He tells the club’s website “The most important thing is not to let the opponent scare you, and follow the coach’s tactics to the end.”

Lionel Messi, in contrast, told Barcelona’s news website this week, that the team believes they are the best in the league. “But we have the belief we can beat anybody and go all the way. We feel we let ourselves down last season and that hurt, the way we lost in Europe and Spain.” He also told news “We have started this season well and had to do that because everyone out there is improving – but we relish the challenge and we can thrive on anything that heads our way.” For live score updates today, click HERE.