BERLIN, 18 Apr. (STATS Perform/dpa/EP) –
Manchester City’s coach, Pep Guardiola, made it clear that his team already knows “how difficult” it is to face the German Bayern Munich, a rival who knows that they “can” come back this Wednesday from the 3-0 loss conceded in the first leg of the quarterfinals of the Champions League.
“I didn’t tell the team to be careful with Bayern, with how difficult it is. They’re not relaxed because they’ve felt it, they know how good it is. The opponent has many, many weapons, and that’s why you have to be yourself. What has to be done to achieve it? Being ourselves as far as possible”, Guardiola warned at a press conference.
The Catalan coach would like his team to be prepared to finalize the pass without problems after the good advantage of the first leg. “But I don’t know. Each game is completely different,” remarked the man from Santpedor, who is on the verge of reaching one hundred Champions League wins, a figure only surpassed by the Italian Carlo Ancelotti (105) and the Scotsman Alex Ferguson ( 102), although if he wins at the Allianz Arena he would have done it in fewer games than both.
Besides, Guardiola affirmed that the City will not play to conserve his advantage. “I don’t understand the situation of coming here just to defend something. We come to play a football game and if you only think about the result and what you have to do, or what we have done in the past, it would be a big mistake for us,” he stressed.
“We’re going to have to defend, that’s for sure. It already happened to us in Manchester. During part of the game, they were better, and we had to defend, and we’re going to have to defend tomorrow, Wednesday,” he added. “I’ve been here at Bayern and I know the mentality of this club. It’s everywhere, it’s in Sabener Strasse (club headquarters), it’s in their skin. I know they believe they can do it, and we also believe it,” he said. .