Real Madrid are the team to beat in the Champions League

Ronaldo and Benzema have both been great for Real Madrid

Only one team sailed through the Champions League group stages with a 100% record and that was the mighty Real Madrid.

They were placed in Group B with Basel, Liverpool and Ludogorets Razgrad, but Real made very easy work of qualification as they won all six games, scoring 16 goals and conceding only two in the process.

Carlo Ancelotti's side opened their Champions League account with a statement of intent as they thrashed Swiss champions Basel 5-1 at the Santiago Bernabeu before comfortably progressing with a total of 18 points, some 11 points more than Basel in second place.

They romped through their group to become the first team in Champions League history to twice go through a group stage with an unblemished record.

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However, it is not just in the Champions League where Madrid are succeeding, as the club are on an incredible winning run in all competitions.

Their 2-1 victory at Almeria was a 20th successive victory and the club are now only five more wins away from breaking the world record, which was set by Brazilian side Coritiba in 2011.

They are scoring goals for fun and Cristiano Ronaldo himself has got 32 goals in 23 matches this season, including an incredible 25 in 14 La Liga games. Those kind of statistics make phenomenal reading and ensure no-one will want to draw Madrid in the Champions League knockout stages.

It is now more than three months since Madrid have tasted defeat and their 4-0 home win over Ludogorets in the final round of games in Group B saw them break Barcelona's Spanish record of 18 wins in a row.

When you look at the Madrid line-up it is no surprise that they are blowing teams away. They are a solid unit with explosive power in the attacking third. The addition of Toni Kroos during the summer has boosted them in the centre of the park, while the likes of Ronaldo, Gareth Bale, James Rodriguez and Karim Benzema all consistently chip in with goals.

Even with injuries to top players such as Luka Modric, Sami Khedira and recently Rodriguez, Madrid have continued on their impressive run. After only 15 games of the La Liga season, Madrid have scored 55 goals, have a positive goal difference of 42, and hold a four-point lead over rivals Barcelona.

As the defending Champions League victors, Madrid now head to Morocco for the Club World Cup and will be favourites to take on the best from the rest of the world. Given their phenomenal recent record, Madrid must also be classed as the team to beat in the Champions League after the group stage.

The 10-time champions of Europe will be the team no-one else will want to draw when the balls are pulled out of the pot for the round of 16 match-ups.

Whoever they come up against, Real will be regarded as almost certainties to make it through to the next round as stopping them is proving nigh-on impossible at the moment. It would require a phenomenal effort from any team in Europe to prevent Madrid scoring and come out on top over the course of two legs. Given no team has beaten them in a one-off game since September 13, beating them over two games proves a near-impossible proposition at this point in time.

There is a slim chance that Madrid's fortunes could alter dramatically between now and the knockout stages starting, but there is an equal chance that when the round of 16 gets under way in February Real could have smashed the existing world record and still be flying high.