Favourites Barcelona are the team all the others would rather avoid when the draw for the Champions League quarter-finals is made at Uefa’s headquarters at noon in Nyon on Friday.

Barca have been installed as the overwhelming 6-5 favourites to lift the European Cup for the second time in three seasons by London bookmakers William Hill while praise for their style of play has won almost universal plaudits.

They go into the draw with Spanish rivals and nine-times European champions Real Madrid, the English trio of Manchester United, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur, champions Inter Milan, Schalke 04 of Germany and Ukrainian side Shakhtar Donetsk.

The draw for the semi-finals will also be made on Friday, leaving clubs knowing exactly what they have to do to reach the final at Wembley Stadium in London on May 28.

Barcelona reached the last eight with a 4-3 aggregate win over Arsenal in the last 16, and Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo knows just how hard facing them now will be.

“Maybe we’d like to meet one of the smaller teams, but can you really say that of any side that has reached the last eight?” he said after his team ended a seven-year wait to reach the quarter-finals by knocking out Olympique Lyon.

“Whoever remains in the competition is there on merit and we need to be wary of everyone. Barcelona for me would represent the most difficult challenge and maybe it would be better to come up against them further down the line.”

Ronaldo’s old Manchester United team mate Wayne Rooney also identified Barcelona — and somewhat more surprisingly Spurs — as the teams he would rather avoid in the draw.

Rooney said United have the quality to win the competition but told reporters after their last 16 win over Olympique Marseille: “Many people have said Barcelona are the best team in the world right now, and obviously they are playing some great football, so you might not want to face them.

“But I’m also enjoying watching Tottenham at the minute. It’s great to see what they are doing in their first year in the Champions League. I’m happy we play on different days to them because it’s good watching them.”

OPEN DRAW

The draw is open so teams from the same country can play one another leaving the intriguing possibilities of Barca facing Real Madrid and Manchester United meeting Chelsea in a repeat of the 2008 final in Moscow which United won on penalties.

If Real are drawn against Barcelona, the two rivals will face each other four times in as many as 15 days with two Champions League games on either April 5/6 for the first leg and April 12/13 for the second, as well as meeting in La Liga on April 17 and the Copa del Rey final on April 20.

Real manager Jose Mourinho, bidding to become the first man to lift the European Cup with three different clubs after success with Porto (2004) and Inter last season, would love to avenge Barca’s 5-0 league win over Real earlier this season — and not face his former clubs Chelsea and Inter.

“I prefer to avoid Chelsea and Inter because emotionally it’s difficult playing against your people and your friends,” Mourinho said after Real’s win on Wednesday.

“If we have to play them then we will play them as we are all professionals but I’ll have to forget they are my people.

“Emotionally I will have to better prepare myself to play Inter or Chelsea.”

Real director general Jorge Valdano said it would be better for Spanish football if Real and Barca met at a later stage and he would prefer not to face Schalke because the return of former hero Raul to the Bernabeu would be too much of a distraction.

“We wouldn’t like it if Raul visited us,” Valdano said in a television interview. “There would be too much emotion, too much atmosphere and it wouldn’t be advisable.”