The reigning Spanish champions needed a last-minute goal from Guti at the Bernabeu to seal a 3-2 aggregate victory over battling Alicante and progress through to the last 16 of the Copa del Rey.

It may not have been the most convincing way to start to 2008, but Schuster was always convinced his team would make it through.

"I was full of confidence that my team were going to win. It was not necessary to do it in this way, waiting until the last minute, but their goalkeeper has played superbly in both games," he said.

Schuster made a host of changes to the line-up that beat arch-rivals Barcelona in the final game of 2007, and the German was pleased to see his fringe players putting forward good cases for starting roles against Real Zaragoza this weekend.

"The players are trying to make life as complicated as possible for me, and this is good," he added.

"I am happy, the players have returned well and have taken advantage of this game to do things well and obtain a victory which is much-welcomed ahead of Sunday's match against Zaragoza.

"We have had to suffer until the end because we have let them off on many occasions.

"I think that we have have scored before and not in the last minute, but the important thing is that we have won and there is nothing more to say."