Barcelona's Ivan Rakitic has labelled Arsenal as one of the best teams in history ahead the meeting between the two clubs.

The Gunners will host the Catalan giants in the Champions League Round of 16 first leg on Tuesday night and Barca's Croatian international is expecting it to be a very difficult affair for he and his star teammates.

"There is no need to talk about favourites," Rakitic said.

"Arsenal are one of the best teams in history.

"We have to play well to get a good result, but we will also rely on the second leg.

"Of course we'd like to repeat what we did last year (win the Champions League) but we know it's hard. We have to go step by step."