Chelsea boss Antonio Conte admits they're been preparing for their Barcelona showdown for over a month.

Chelsea meet Barca this week in the first-leg of their Champions League round 16 clash after Friday's FA Cup win over Hull City.

Chelsea have never conceded a goal from Lionel Messi and the Italian manager is desperate it stays that way.

Conte said: “I hope that we maintain this tradition but we are speaking about a club with fantastic players like Messi.

“We must have great respect but at the same time we must be excited to play this type of game and take on this type of challenge."

The Italian continued: “Stopping Messi won't be easy because we know very well this player. We are talking about one of the best players in the world. But we for sure will work together, work with the team, not to just try to stop him but when we feel this type of challenge to man mark a player then he can be very dangerous."

Chelsea won the title in 2012 and Conte has enjoyed European success when manager of Juventus, but he adds: “I think that the past is not important. The most important thing is the present. The present is this.

“We know very well that we have to work very hard to stop this team. On one hand you know that this team is one of the best teams in the world and maybe they are the favourite to win this competition.

"We started our studies on Barcelona one month ago and analysed this team. We are speaking about one of the best teams in the world. We have to try to have the perfect game and to try to make the best decision also for this type of team.

“This is a different opponent. They have a fantastic characteristic with the ball, they can have a weakness without the ball and we must try to exploit this."