Guardiola admits he is working harder to find solutions to City's crisis
29/11/2024
emnbargoed section
CFGA, Manchester, Uk
29/11/2024
emnbargoed section
CFGA, Manchester, Uk
Category
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SportsTranscript
00:00This is the first game that Manchester City will go into since April 2017,
00:06where they're not favourites to win.
00:09Would you ever bet against your team?
00:12Well, being in favourites in Anfield, we never won,
00:15except once with a Covid time, there were no people there,
00:18so nothing changed much, I would say.
00:20Yeah, of course we are not.
00:22So now we did improve for the recent games, and especially for the other one,
00:26but that is not the point.
00:28I played this in my career, when they play in Barcelona with these extraordinary players,
00:32and with favourites, favourites, never thought about it.
00:35Give me an extra boost, I'm going to start the game from 1-0,
00:38we're going to play better.
00:39We have to perform, we have to read what we have to do, and see what happens.
00:44And you mentioned earlier about the dominance of your team over the last seven or eight years,
00:49do you think that rival fans, rival clubs are actually enjoying
00:54seeing this struggle that you're in at the moment?
00:56No, obviously.
00:58But that's normal in a sport, when it's in a good sense and you take it to piece,
01:02and they are laughing, you defeat, that's normal.
01:06So when there's respect, and you know, it's not against the violence,
01:10and this kind of stuff, and respect, it's part of how nice football is,
01:16the people can laugh at you when it's not going well,
01:21but apart from that, I know how we behave internally.
01:26Me as a manager, like a spokesman of this club every three days,
01:29and especially the players, how we behave in the good moments.
01:34We proved we were an exceptional club.
01:38We celebrated, but not much.
01:40We respect the opponents, and that's how we have done it.
01:44And I would say that is one of the things I like the most,
01:49in the good moments, how we behave.
01:51And now it's the other part, for this period, we are in November,
01:54and after Anfield you have another one, three days after, another one,
02:00another one, until the end.
02:01And at the right moment, the club, myself first,
02:03and the club will take the decisions that you have to take
02:06to maintain the club for many years to come.
02:09And I want to be here, I ask you to be here to try it.
02:14Hi Pep, you mentioned looking for solutions,
02:18but you've got very little time on the training ground at the moment.
02:20Do you have to simplify your solutions to the problems,
02:23because you occasionally get one day a week on the training ground with two games,
02:26and obviously a lot of injuries.
02:28How are you going about it to create those?
02:31Is there a risk of overthinking it?
02:32Just practice and remember, during seven, eight, nine years, we have done it.
02:37So we don't do anything special, analyse the club, the team,
02:41try to analyse what they are doing,
02:43and against us they play completely different,
02:45what they have done all season, adapt,
02:47and do the normal things that we have done for many years.
02:51Of course, I said many times, there have to be sentences, and try to do it.
02:56When you're looking at solutions, have you come up with anything that you thought,
03:00actually that doesn't work, and not actually made it out onto the training ground?
03:03Have you changed your thinking at all, at some point,
03:06and realised to go back to the training ground?
03:09At some point, and then realised to go back to the more simple ideas?
03:12Thinking, changing...
03:14Yeah, have you thought of really changing things,
03:16but then realised that actually that would be a bit dramatic?
03:22Yeah, I can change, but I have to feel it.
03:25I'm not saying to do...
03:28Listen, when in the past I said I was overthinking it,
03:31it's because I was changing, right?
03:33But I do it because I believe that is the best for that moment,
03:36for the players that I have at my disposal in that moment,
03:39for many reasons that they have to do.
03:41But if I change, it's because I believe in something,
03:44not because the audience says something different.
03:48I know my players perfectly, I know the situation,
03:50I think I know the Premier League, and you want to change?
03:54I have to convince my players to do it.
03:56I would not say, because there's no guarantee.
03:59I proved many times, I said many times,
04:02the first season when I arrived, when Bayern Munich,
04:04when I arrived after travel, for Jürgen Henke to say,
04:06I should change, with you playing in that situation, doing that.
04:11Always I move what I feel in my heart, in my guts, and I go there.
04:17And it's the same feelings as these arguments,
04:20as a winner, as a genius, and when they happen,
04:23sounds, the smell, the perfume is not good enough right now.
04:28But I have to live from my conscience, from my knowledge
04:32about my team, or the Premier League, the opponents,
04:34to be honest with myself, knowing that sometimes it doesn't work,
04:38but it will work tomorrow.
04:43Hi Pep, this is obviously a very different challenge
04:46to what you're used to, what you've had here.
04:49Is there a part of you that's enjoying this,
04:51trying to find solutions, that's enjoying the fact
04:53that it's something different, enjoying the fact
04:55you're having to come up with something different?
04:58I don't enjoy it at all.
05:02I don't like it.
05:04I slept not as good as I slept when I won every game.
05:10But that doesn't mean I don't have to do it.
05:14So I said, yeah, I think these two shall pass.
05:18I don't know when, but life is nothing, it's eternal,
05:21not even our life.
05:22So when I face this kind of situation, I think honestly,
05:28from the bottom of my heart, that is normal, this is normal.
05:31Maybe not in these five games, or whatever,
05:35or three games in the Premier League losing,
05:38you know that, but maybe it's more unusual to win
05:41four Premier Leagues in a row, right?
05:43So in that moment I was stable enough, I was happy
05:46because I did better, but I was not thinking
05:51different than who I am.
05:53So I'm the same person in four Premier Leagues in a row
05:57and in that situation.
05:58I have the same doubts in that moment,
06:00what I have to do to the next, what I have to do,
06:02be careful on this, be careful on that.
06:04And now I want to be more closer to the players.
06:06My hugs and my arms are closer than them
06:08because I know they are suffering.
06:10I know they are unstable for many things.
06:12I know how they, oh God, how is not able to win
06:15that game against Feyenoord, for example.
06:17You know, why you don't score the four minutes
06:20and when we had the chance to score against the Spurs
06:23or against the other one, and after Constitu,
06:25for that, what can I do?
06:26And they suffered, what can I do?
06:28Blame them?
06:28Absolutely not.
06:30I'm here sitting, extend the contract, it's thanks to them.
06:32Like we won all the time in Barcelona, Bayern Munich,
06:35it's thanks to the players.
06:36And in the good moments, they have to be more aggressive,
06:38to be complacent, to be relaxed.
06:40And now they, wow, they want to do it,
06:42but we are not finding the right way to do it.
06:47But always we think, you know, we are the same.
06:50All the players that we have, 60, 70 or 70% or 80% of the players
06:54that gave us the last three, four Premier Leagues in a row,
06:57it's three years later.
06:59It's four years later and three years more.
07:02So people change and we get old
07:05and the targets sometimes changing and it's normal.
07:11It's normal.
07:12I said the previous ones, I will insist again,
07:14and even now we start to try to win games for a long run,
07:19a long time, I had the same feeling.
07:22Sooner or later it should happen because nothing is...
07:25And the people say, yeah, it's the end of that,
07:27but maybe, we are in November, we see what happens until the end,
07:30but maybe, what can you do, cry for that?
07:34So we have to try to do it and stay long, many, many years
07:37without fighting for that.
07:39That is what we try to look for, you know, this is the best.
07:42Because lose games or lose periods,
07:44that one month bad results when we pay a lot,
07:48why should not be leave, you know?
07:50Why should not happen with us?
07:52So this is the truth.
07:54Pep, the first question that Simon asked
07:57was about the confidence of the players.
08:01What about your own confidence?
08:03Does your confidence in yourself ever suffer?
08:08Do you ever ask questions of yourself about your own confidence?
08:14Confidence, no.
08:15Decisions, when it doesn't go well, I go home and say,
08:17oh, what should happen if I took that decision of that player
08:22instead of that player, or that movement and that movement,
08:25my speech didn't have time, or I spoke after,
08:28it should be, don't say anything.
08:31So yeah, but in the beliefs, I will believe,
08:36I'm stubborn, I would say.
08:38But of course, the decision, even when we won,
08:40you take a decision and it works,
08:42I said, oh, how good it was.
08:44Always I take Pep, because sometimes happens because it happened,
08:50not because, you know.
08:53We played incredible games, I said many times,
08:56we won the Champions League final against Inter
08:58when the performance was not really good,
09:01and we have been in semi-finals, quarter-finals,
09:03playing exceptional, beyond exceptional,
09:06and we are out, and we are losers,
09:08and after we are the best team of the world.
09:10Always I was incredible balance in that opinion,
09:13I know how my team played bad, really bad.
09:16I think I'm really good analysing the reason why it's happened right now,
09:20the situations, and of course it's going to help to change the turnaround.
09:26Winning games, that's for sure.
09:28Just for the fact of winning, you know?
09:29Everybody is talk to talk, and the players feel,
09:31OK, we can do it again.
09:34And of course, it's what you have to do.
09:37Just one last thing, you talked just before about how people change,
09:41and people get older, we all get older.
09:44How have you changed, do you think?
09:47I mean, I'm thinking particularly in regards to, say, your intensity,
09:51the intensity with which you approach the job.
09:53Has that changed?
09:59No, I don't think so.
10:02I still have passion, still I stand up in the morning to say,
10:07OK, I'm going to prepare the training,
10:09the game plan from Liverpool,
10:10the way they defend, the way they attack,
10:12what do you have to do?
10:13You have two days for that.
10:15Continue the same.
10:16So, I would say work more,
10:19because when the situation goes smooth,
10:21go comfortable, OK, you can relax a little bit in that moment.
10:26The fact that maybe it's not good, you know?
10:29Maybe you should relax a little bit.
10:32But no, I'm the same, yeah?
10:33I will not be here, I will extend the contract one week ago, ten days.
10:37I'm incredibly honest with that.
10:38That was, listen, I was in Barcelona,
10:41that today is the 125th anniversary for my, I would say, club,
10:45when I was born and I was there,
10:48and four years, 14 titles to 19.
10:53I had Messi, the best player ever, Neymar was coming,
10:56and I said, I'm leaving.
10:58So, why, people ask?
11:00You know, why are you leaving your hometown
11:02with this generational player, Xavi, Iniesta, Puyol,
11:04all the players that changed the world,
11:06World Cups, European Cups?
11:07And it's not necessary to tell how they played the finals, that guys,
11:12and I left.
11:13I felt it.
11:14He is the same, because I feel it.
11:17I'm not sitting here just for what I've done,
11:23because still I'm happy, still I want to try,
11:25but the moment is going to happen.
11:28I don't want to stay in the place like I feel I'm a problem.
11:31I don't want to stay because the contract is there.
11:35My chairman knows it.
11:37And I said to him, give me the chance to try to come back,
11:44and especially when everybody comes back,
11:45and I have to see what happens,
11:46and after he's not able to do it,
11:48after we have to change.
11:51Because, of course, nine years I did,
11:52but I never asked to stay,
11:56but more than ever, I asked my higher kid,
11:58give me the chance, it will be easy for me now.
12:02It's not going well, but I don't want now.
12:04I had the feeling that still I have a job to do,
12:06and I want to do it.
12:07I want to do it.
12:09Thank you, everyone.