Juventus's Morata ready to renew Barcelona rivalry

"Scoring against Barcelona would not be as painful as it was scoring against Madrid," said Juventus forward Álvaro Morata as he aims to face his former Liga rivals in Saturday's UEFA Champions League final.

The 22-year-old Spanish international, who joined Juve last summer shortly after helping Real Madrid CF win this competition, could become only the fourth player to lift the trophy in successive seasons with different clubs. To do so, the Bianconeri will have to beat a team Morata, who refused to celebrate his two semi-final goals against Madrid, knows well. He started Madrid's 2-1 home victory over Barcelona in March 2013, before coming off the bench in a 4-3 Santiago Bernabéu loss the following campaign.

"Obviously scoring against Barcelona would not be as painful as it was scoring against Madrid [in the semis] but I need to actually score before thinking about celebrations," Morata said. "Getting a goal in a Champions League final against Barcelona is no easy task. I played for Madrid for many years, I'm not going to say it's an extra motivation for me because you don't need extra motivation when you play a Champions League final, but facing Barça will always be special for me."

If the Blaugrana are widely considered favourites for the Berlin showpiece with their attacking line in scintillating form, Morata believes Juve will have their own cards to play. "We are certainly not going to Berlin thinking we are inferior to Barcelona," the No9 explained. "We would not even go there if we thought we had no chance of winning."

Lionel Messi, Neymar and Luis Suárez have combined for 120 goals this season but Morata is sure the Italian champions can contain Barcelona's front men. "They have had a great season, they are incredible players and they are in spectacular form right now," he said. "However, I think we have one of the best defensive lines in Europe. We have had some great performances ourselves and have handled some top-level players. It will be a very difficult game but we are confident we have our possibilities."

Morata in his Madrid days©Getty Images

During Monday's open media session in Turin, many of the Juventus players spoke about Messi and his fantastic strike against Athletic Club in Saturday's Copa del Rey final. Defender Leonardo Bonucci described the No10 as an "alien" while Gianluigi Buffon said "he is from another planet". Morata opted for "magnificent", saying: "Messi and Cristiano [Ronaldo] are the two players who are head and shoulders above the rest.

"It is very difficult to stop him but there is not just Messi at Barcelona," Morata continued. "The other two [Suárez and Neymar] can always punish you. If you focus only on Messi, the other two are going to kill you. And then their defence – people talk a lot about their attack but their defence is also top class. They are a great team in general, they are among the best in the world, if not the best, but I'm sure they also have plenty of respect for us because they know we can be dangerous and haven't reached the final by accident."