Guardiola says City will tackle must-win Champions League match with coldness
Guardiola says City will tackle must-win Champions League match with coldness
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Pep Guardiola is approaching Manchester City’s must-win final Champions League group game against Club Brugge with “no emotion” to ensure his players understand precisely how to execute the manager’s game plan. City are in 25th place, two points behind Stuttgart in the final qualifying position. If Brugge are not defeated, Guardiola’s side will be knocked out of Europe. The City manager is therefore unsurprisingly approaching the match with cold-eyed intent. “We’d like to score goals in the first 20 minutes – a lot,” he said. “But I think it’s not going to happen. The approach is now to read the game you have to play, for them [players] to do. Completely relaxed, not emotional, it’s to understand the game.
“After, we have to execute. I know in this type of game you have to put something special, something that has not been enough [from us] so far in the Champions League, to win the games. It’s simple, the question is simple. If we don’t win, we’ll be out. If we win, we’ll go through.
Guardiola is relaxed about the sudden-death situation City find themselves in. “I’ve been in the Champions League for many years, this type of game I’ve played many times. Sooner or later you have to play this type of game where you win, you go through, you don’t win, you are out. So many,” he said. “But it happened more in the further stages, not right now [opening phase]. But we are here for the reasons that we know – that we are not good enough.”.
City last failed to progress from the group stage of the Champions League in 2012-13. Guardiola was asked how the club’s finances would be affected if they missed out on the knockout stages this season. He said: “I don’t know, I didn’t speak with my CEO [Ferran Soriano] about that. In the last two or three or four years, always for the transfer windows, the budget is positive. The net spend has been amazing.
