Manchester City coach Pep Guardiola made it clear that his team already knows «how difficult» it is to face German side Bayern Munich, an opponent he knows «can» come back from a 3-0 deficit in the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final on Wednesday.
«I didn’t tell the team to be careful with Bayern, with how difficult they are. They are not relaxed because they have felt it, they know how good it is. The opponent has many, many weapons, and that’s why you have to be yourself. What do you have to do to achieve that? To be ourselves as much as possible,» Guardiola warned at a press conference.
The Catalan coach would like his team was prepared to finish the pass without problems after the good advantage of the first leg. «But I don’t know. Every game is completely different,» remarked the man from Santpedor, who is on the verge of reaching 100 Champions League victories, a figure only surpassed by Italy’s Carlo Ancelotti (105) and Scotland’s Alex Ferguson (102), although if he wins at the Allianz Arena he would have achieved it in fewer games than both of them.
In addition, Guardiola said City will not play to preserve their lead. «I don’t understand the situation of coming here just to defend something. We come here to play a soccer match and if you think only 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. For 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 (clubhouse), it’s in their skin. I know they believe they can do it, and we believe it too,» he sentenced.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)