Spartak Moscow's Italian coach Massimo Carrera has spoken to his countryman Antonio Conte ahead of the Liverpool Champions League game tomorrow night.
Carrera played alongside Conte, and then was part of the backroom staff at Juventus during Conte's time as manager.
Although Chelsea failed to beat the reds last season, the Moscow coach insists that after a chat about family and their clubs he still 'learned something about Liverpool' from the conversation with Conte.
Spartak, despite having won the title for the first time in 16 years, have started the new season in poor form. They are 9th in the Russian league after 11 games, with 3 wins and 5 draws to their name.
They are also missing their Dutch forward Quincy Promes, as well as their club captain due to injury.
Carrera has put his sides poor start down to the pressure of being Champions:
The team are under psychological pressure. We need to forget everything that happened last season, and work hard to correct mistakes.
We miss not only Promes, but Ze Luis and Jano, who also got injured.
But they will be replaced by other players, and we will try to play our football.
He was wary about the Liverpool threat.
We understand that we are facing a strong team, filled with very high-quality football players. Our task is to play our football without any fear. We have to go on to the pitch and play the perfect game.
All of Liverpool strikers are fast and dangerous. But the midfielders who support the attack are no less dangerous. So we will try to play perfectly and give our opponent as few opportunities as possible.
Despite their poor domestic form, Spartak are savouring their return to the tournament. 15 years ago following their last title triumph they also met Liverpool in the group stages of the competition.
Liverpool are in Russia and will face Spartak Moscow tomorrow evening at 9:45pm local time (7:45pm BST in the UK).
