Benitez feels that both Eto'o and Lionel Messi are crucial to Barca's hopes of victory in the last 16 clash and that the desire for the pair to play sparked the row between Eto'o and Rijkaard.

Eto'o has been accused by the Dutch coach of refusing to come on as a substitute last weekend against Racing Santander, and that incident has also caused Ronaldinho to question Eto'o's team loyalty, though, both parties moved to calm the storm on Wednesday with Eto'o protesting he had been misconstrued.

"Yes, I think they have been trying to push these players back quickly for this game," said Benitez, who worked with Eto's when in charge of Real Madrid's youth academy.

Looking ahead, the Spaniard also told liverpoolfc.tv: "Everyone is very excited about this game. They have been talking about it almost every day for the last two months.

Their team is really good and when the draw was made people were saying Barcelona are the best team in the world.

After two months we are a lot better and they have had some problems. They need Eto'o fit, and Messi, because they haven't been scoring a lot of goals.

Yes they are really strong, they are not playing at the same level but if they have Eto'o, Messi and Ronaldinho then I think they have very good players.

"I also know Eto'o as he was in the academy at Real Madrid when I was there, so I have good relations with them.

"It could be good for us to be underdogs. I think that it is important for us as we will not have big pressure there."

He added: "It will be hard there, but it will be good for us to score. Always for us to play the second leg at Anfield is important and we need to score in Barcelona if it's possible.

"Liverpool have never lost at the Nou Camp and they have played three times. I would like to keep this record."

Reds captain Steven Gerrard added: "We have to have belief in our ability and we must not spend too much time worrying about Barcelona.

"If you do that you will give yourself nightmares because they are a great side. We know what we are capable of and we know the performance we can come up with on the big occasion.

"We would love to go there and win, we are not a team that goes anywhere to play for a draw. But it would not be a bad result for us.

"A lot of our lads have plenty of experience of playing in the Nou Camp, so there is no fear factor."