Of the eight Champions League clashes this week, perhaps none is more intriguing than the meeting between Spanish giants Real Madrid and current German league leaders Bayern Munich at the Santiago Bernabeu in Madrid tonight.

Both come into this Group C clash after impressive weekend victories. Bayern celebrated their centenary by defeating Eintracht Frankfurt 3-1 and Real beat arch-rivals Barcelona 3-0.

Having sunk to 17th in the league, Real seemed destined for a nightmare season. However, under former player Vicente Del Bosque, the man who took over from the sacked John Toshack, Real have clawed their up the table with Saturday night's win moving them to joint second with Zaragoza, six points behind leaders Deportivo La Coruna.

In the same period, Real also qualified for the semi-finals of the Spanish Cup while, under Del Bosque, they made an excellent pre-Christmas start to the second phase of the Champions League, beating Ukraine's Dinamo Kiev 2-1 away and Norwegians Rosenborg 3-1 at home in their first two games.

Obviously, a win against Bayern tonight would see them take a major step towards the quarterfinals, thus at least partially redeeming an $85 million spending spree last summer, much of which was spent on enigmatic French talent Nicolas Anelka.

Anelka scored his first Spanish league goal as Real destroyed a strangely hesitant Barcelona on Saturday.

After a winter of argument with his most famous player, Brazilian Rivaldo, Van Gaal has seen Barcelona sink to fifth in the league.

In contrast to Barcelona, there is clearly a growing sense of selfbelief in and around the Real camp, a point underlined by chirpy Brazilian left back Roberto Carlos, scorer of the opening goal against Barcelona with one of his left-foot free-kick specials in only the fifth minute:

"We're still alive in three competitions and we're going to try and win all three of them. There is still a long way to go in the league and we want that number one spot," he said afterwards.

Real, however, tonight face a side as famous, and as much inform, as themselves. Even without such as Lothar Matthaeus, Mehmet Scholl and Frenchman Bixente Lizarazu, Bayern proved too strong for Eintracht on Saturday prompting commercial manager, Uli Hoeness to comment: "One point against Real will do fine, if we then go on to win our next two games both at home (to Real and Rosenborg)."

Brazilians Paulo Sergio and Elber will play in front of Scholl in a Bayern line-up that should also include Matthaeus as sweeper, whilst Real are likely to look to the three-man attack that did the damage against Barcelona - Raul Gonzalez, Anelka and Fernando Morientes.