"My culture is that of Brazilian football," noted Luxemburgo, who was Brazil national coach between 1998 and 2000 and who took on the job of Real's fifth man at the helm in 18 months on Thursday after replacing stopgap Mariano Garcia Remon.

Nine-times European champions Real have endured a miserable first half of the campaign to stand just fifth in the league as bitter rivals Barcelona seemingly canter towards the title while, in Europe, they only just made it through the group phase. Luxemburgo, who arrives having coached Santos to the Brazilian crown for his fifth Brazilian domestic title success, Thursday stressed greater discipline and professionalism were needed and that his galacticos had to gird themselves to do much better.

Having called on his squad of multi-millionaires to pull together to prevent a second straight trophyless season Luxemburgo, 52, said Friday: "The players are professionals and there won't be any problems. To win we must stick together.

"The first thing we have to do is recover ourselves in the league and also prepare ourselves for the Champions League."

Real face mighty Juventus on February 22 when the Champions League knockout round gets underway.

At times Real have struggled to produce a cohesive on-pitch strategy leading to claims in some quarters that the squad is a collection of stars but not a team.

Yet Luxemburgo, who put the squad through their paces in the year's final training session Friday, said he would not have it any other way.

"It's better to work with great players than not have them in the ranks - but they have to be committed to the club."

Luxemburgo, who will be in charge for Wednesday's home mini-match against Real Sociedad - the final seven minutes have to be played after a bomb threat caused the encounter on December 12 to be abandoned at the Bernabeu - drew a parallel with Barcelona's problems last season.

Barca started appallingly but recovered superbly to come second as Real did the reverse.

"Last year I saw some games where Barcelona were pretty bad but they set off on a run and moved up the table.

"In football, everything is possible," said Luxemburgo.

Under his baton, Real must dance to a samba tune - sweet music to the ears of Brazilian kingpins Ronaldo and Roberto Carlos, though it remains to be seen if the likes of England stars David Beckham and Michael Owen will be able to sing as effectively from the same songsheet.