Champions' League Draw:Rafael Benitez last night confronted Liverpool's daunting draw against Barcelona in the knockout phase of the Champions League by insisting his side's status as overwhelming underdogs will be "perfect", with the Spaniard hoping to exploit the holders' apparent complacency to eliminate them from the competition.

The Liverpool manager received telephone calls from colleagues in Spain earlier last week suggesting Barcelona would prefer to face the 2005 winners rather than any of the other teams who had topped their groups.

Indeed, the reaction of the Catalan club's president, Joan Laporta, to the draw in Nyon - "I had a preference for playing Liverpool at this stage," he said - appeared to confirm as much, although there may be other factors behind his desire to go to Anfield. "It will be fantastic to visit the Cavern and learn a bit more about the Beatles," Laporta said. "I'm looking forward to going to the home of the Beatles."

If Benitez can detect an excess of confidence in his opponents he will surely use it in his side's favour. "I received a lot of phone calls from people in Barcelona and they were all saying they wanted us," he said. "I knew before that Barca would think: 'Okay, good, we're a better team than the rest of the sides involved, and especially Liverpool.' They will have confidence, and everyone sees them as one of the best sides in the world, but this is the Champions League. In these kind of games, you will see a big difference in our players, who raise their levels."

Benitez, a former Real Madrid player and coach, regularly enjoyed successes over Barcelona during his hugely impressive three-year reign at Valencia, but will hope the Spanish league leaders underestimate Liverpool in much the same way as the Merseysiders did Benfica at the same stage last season. The unfancied Portuguese ended up winning the second-round tie 3-0 on aggregate, Benitez and his senior players admitting complacency had crept into their game.

In contrast, this tie will draw comparison with the fixtures against Juventus and Chelsea in 2004-2005, games Liverpool won impressively against supposedly stronger opposition en route to claiming the trophy against Milan in Istanbul.

"It's a big difference from last year, certainly," said the Spaniard. "People were saying then that Benfica would be easy, and now they're saying against Barcelona, against Ronaldinho and Eto'o, Xavi and Gudjohnsen, it will be impossible for us. Perfect.

"We don't have anything to lose, so we can be focused on the game and play our own style. We have a lot of respect for Barcelona. They have great players throughout their team and they will have Samuel Eto'o back from his knee injury for this game, but we have no reason to fear anyone.

"We'll start the game there without pressure, we will be focused and have our supporters behind us at Anfield. That is really important. Against Olympiakos (in the 2004-05 group stage) the atmosphere was amazing, as it was especially against Chelsea. We had the supporters behind us and you could see it made a difference for the players. Anfield is really important for us."

Two of Benitez's players, Luis Garcia and Jose Reina, used to play for Barcelona, the latter having featured for the Catalans when Liverpool beat them in the Uefa Cup semi-final of 2001. Barcelona have won on Merseyside in the Champions League since that heady night, but Liverpool's experienced players will be buoyed by the memory of twice emerging from the Nou Camp in recent times with goalless draws.

"My players will be excited at the prospect of facing Barcelona, not frightened," added Benitez.

"We have experience and we don't have anything to lose. Barcelona are favourites to win the tie; people say they are one of the best teams in the world. Fine, we will see. I know my players will be focused on beating them as they are disappointed at going out of the Champions League to Benfica last season."

Chelsea winger Arjen Robben said Liverpool would be "not so happy" with their bad luck but seemed pleased his side had been drawn against the 2004 champions Porto. "It's a special draw for the Portuguese - the manager (Jose Mourinho), Ricardo Carvalho and Paulo Ferreira - and it will give them that extra bit of pleasure if we beat them," he said.

"We were never going to get an easy draw but we're quite happy with how it has turned out. It certainly could have been worse but it's not going to be easy."

• Guardian Service