ANALYSIS

If Juventus are to beat Barcelona in the Champions League quarter-finals, the Bianconeri are likely to need a big contribution from star striker Gonzalo Higuain.

The Argentine said this week that he wants to win the Champions League and believes the Italian giants have a great chance of knocking out the Catalan club.

Higuain was at Napoli when Juve met Barca in the 2014-15 Champions League final, but he came up against the Catalan club on many occasions as a Real Madrid player. So how did he get on?

The forward moved to Madrid from River Plate in January 2007 and featured only once against the Blaugrana in his debut season in Spain, overshadowed by his compatriot Lionel Messi as the Barca forward hit a brilliant hat-trick in an entertaining 3-3 draw at Camp Nou.

In his second season, Higuain played no part in the 1-0 loss at Camp Nou, but scored after coming on as a substitute in the 4-1 win over Barca at the Santiago Bernabeu as Los Blancos retained La Liga.

In 2009-10, Higuain then featured for all 90 minutes of the Clasico clash at Camp Nou which Madrid lost 1-0, before playing 80 minutes in the 2-0 loss at the Bernabeu. And the following season, he played only one of six meetings with 55 minutes in the Champions League semi-final second leg (when he was unfortunate to see a goal ruled out for a foul on Javier Mascherano in the build-up when Cristiano Ronaldo had been tripped previously by Gerard Pique and fell onto the Argentine defender).

The current Juventus striker played more versus Barca in 2011-12, but mainly as a substitute, finally featuring as a starter in the two Copa del Rey quarter-final matches, but failing to net in any of his six appearances (the last of which saw him play only a minute as a late replacement in the 2-1 win at Camp Nou as Madrid went on to claim La Liga).

In his final season, he then hit an all-important goal in the Spanish Supercopa second leg which Madrid won against Barca, but he missed chances to put that series out of reach and Real had to hang on for an away-goals win after Messi's free-kick made it 4-4 on aggregate. He also played for 71 minutes in the 3-1 Copa win at Camp Nou, but did not score.

In total, the Argentine has just three goals versus Barcelona in 18 appearances (although many of those were from the bench) and 954 minutes. But if Juventus are to have a real hope of progressing to the Champions League semi-finals, he may well need to add to that tally over the next two matches against the Catalan club.