Iniesta aims to put Barca on top of the world

Andres Iniesta is determined to win the Club World Cup for Barcelona having failed to lift the trophy five years ago.

Iniesta played in the Barcelona team who lost the final 1-0 to Brazilian side Internacional at the 2006 tournament, but was not part of the team who went on to win the title in 2009.

The 27-year-old is confident Pep Guardiola’s men can claim victory, starting with Thursday’s semi-final against Al Sadd.

“We have to learn from the lessons of five years ago,” Iniesta said. “It’s very important to me to win this tournament.”

“We will be ready. It is not easy to adapt to a new schedule. Everything is different to what we are used to in Spain, but we are trying to sleep well and tomorrow (Thursday) will be ready to compete.”

“We are looking forward to the semi-final. I feel very good. I am going through a good moment. When things are going well with the team, things are going well with the players, too. We all want to do well at the Club World Cup and want to win this title.”

The attacking midfielder reflected on his side’s La Liga win over Real Madrid last weekend, insisting that the league is not decided yet.

“Before the match against Real Madrid we said that we still had a lot of games to play in order to win the league and that hasn’t changed,” he said.

“The league is not decided in December. I do not know how (the defeat) affected Real Madrid. I can only say that we are feeling very positive.”

“It’s nice that people are euphoric, and that they are happy with us. The win over Madrid has been good for us.”

Barcelona are level on 37 points with Madrid at the top of the La Liga table, but Los Blancos have a game in hand.