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