Guardiola on City trip to Madrid trailing 3-2

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Guardiola on City trip to Madrid trailing 3-2  18/02/2025  uefa24

Transcript

00:00Good evening, guys, hope you're well. We'll take questions from English-speaking media

00:17first and then questions in Spanish after that. If I can ask you to raise your hand,

00:21we'll come to as many of you as we can. Obviously, it's a busy room. We'll do one question per

00:24organisation, please. Somewhere to start?

00:27Hi, Pep, you've had some good news in terms of Erling Haaland and Jack Grealish and Ake

00:37and Diaz as well. That's a boost for you, isn't it?

00:40Yeah, they travel. We'll see tomorrow. But it's good news they are here, obviously.

00:47You were talking to Jack Grealish quite a lot in the open bit of the training. How important

00:52can he be tomorrow night, because he was playing so well in the first half?

00:54He's able to play a really good game against, for example, FA Cup, but after not having

01:00consistency to play every week, three games a week, six games two weeks, he was not able

01:08to do it. Hopefully, these three months and a half until the end of the season, he can

01:12get it.

01:13Hi, Pep. Obviously, it's not your first time here. You know how intimidating the atmosphere

01:20can be. How important is it that your players focus on their game and try and shut that

01:25out as much as possible tomorrow?

01:26In that level and against that teams, no matter the stage, the pressure is there. That's more

01:32than welcome. You cannot perform well without the pressure. It's what it is, it's not the

01:39first time. It depends how we play, how we handle it. The moment is always in this stadium,

01:46the biggest stadiums. No matter if it's here, Barcelona, Milan, Anfield, always the bad

01:53moments that you have to suffer will be there. Try to reduce as little as possible.

02:01What is it going to take to turn this around? Do you need almost everything to go right?

02:06Yeah, you have to make an almost perfect game, obviously. The result is not good. Always

02:14we came with a more or less good result, but the result is not the perfect situation. We

02:20have to attack, we have to score goals. This is the idea.

02:25Pep, you've already started the renewal of your squad with all the signings you made

02:29in January. Is it fair to say that for some players this might be their last chance with

02:35City in the Champions League, obviously with the summer changes you're thinking of as well?

02:39No, I don't know. I would like to answer you, but it will be at the end of the season. Still

02:45we have a lot to play to qualify for the Champions League next season. Of course, Europe right

02:50now, still we are there. If we are in the World Cup at the end of the season, we take

02:55the decision.

02:56But for the Champions League, this could be their last chance?

03:00This season?

03:01Yes.

03:02Yeah. If we don't go through, definitely it's their last chance. If we go through, we have

03:07another one. But in terms of the players for the future, the decision has not been made

03:13because it depends on how the performance will be until the end of the season.

03:18Hi Pep, you're obviously going to need big characters tomorrow night. Can I ask you about

03:25Erling Haaland's development on that side of his game? Obviously he was given the captain's

03:31armband on Saturday. Have you seen real growth in his leadership qualities?

03:37It has been a really important decision. Since he arrived, I would say, three years ago,

03:43the numbers and the consistency in playing games have been unbelievable. But we had to

03:49perform not just Erling. I always said before, your colleagues had to make almost a perfect

03:55game to go through. But it's the same, you had to go to Anfield or Arsenal right now

04:00or go to Barcelona right now. The big teams in Europe that qualify the top eight, I would

04:05say, if you go away, it will be quite similar. You have to play a really, really good game,

04:11especially after the result we took in the first game.

04:17Hi Pep. All the talk in the build-up to the game here in Madrid has been about referees

04:24saying that they feel they get treated unfairly by match officials. Are you worried at all

04:30that all of this talk might affect the officials in charge of the game tomorrow night?

04:35I don't think so.

04:37Is there already a pressure on referees on such a big occasion?

04:40I don't think so. I'm pretty sure the referee, when there's this scrutiny, you are in front

04:45of all of Europe, all around the world. There's no human being that doesn't want to perform

04:50well because it's not just you and me, it's the whole planet. That's why the decisions

04:58they want to take, they want to be good. Sometimes you know it happens, sometimes it doesn't,

05:05but I don't think they will feel the pressure.

05:08Hi Pep. You've obviously faced Real Madrid a lot over the years, always against good

05:14teams, never easy to win here, but given the circumstances with the scoreline, does this

05:19feel your hardest trip here? If you can do it, would it then feel perhaps the biggest

05:25win you've got here?

05:27I have incredible good memories in this stadium. Sometimes good ones, sometimes not good ones,

05:36but always I had good memories when coming here. It never had been easy when I was a

05:40football player with Barca, then after as a manager of Bayern Munich, the city, always

05:47have been tough, we know that. The history is here, but always have good memories, good

05:53moments. It's tough, of course the result is not the perfect one, but we came sometimes

06:00here with better results, at the end didn't come, sometimes come. We have to do it and

06:07we'll see how we behave.

06:09Pep, just on the referee situation, if your players swear at a referee, are you concerned

06:17they might be risking a red card, or do you think what happened at the weekend was an

06:21overreaction? Do you actually warn your players not to swear at referees?

06:26I would not say never, ever, but rarely, rarely, rarely I talk about the referees with my players.

06:32Maybe in the circumstances that this before is something, something, you know, it's impossible

06:40to forget because it's in the vibe, in the locker room, in the media, extremely hard.

06:49Most of the times I don't even know which referee will be present. So, yesterday, but

06:56yesterday was day off, this morning, never didn't talk about that with the team, and

07:02I assure you it's not going to happen tonight, it's not going to happen tomorrow.

07:05One more question, English guys, just here please.

07:08Hi Pep, Alex Ashmore here for Sporting TV. You talked about those memories playing

07:11Real Madrid, what are some of the big takeaways from those games, perhaps the defeats that

07:15you've learned and things that you want to change to try and do better tomorrow night?

07:18You have to be with courage, you have to be yourself. What I learned in the years, like

07:24I was a football player with a young player here and we didn't get results, the moment

07:28we changed a bit the mentality, you have to play with incredible courage, you have to

07:33play to win the game. Otherwise, of course you can lose, but of course you are yourself.

07:40And the times we did really well here, we didn't get results because we played to win

07:47the game. Now we don't have an alternative for the result we have in the first leg.

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