GUARDIOLA: We aren’t the favourites to win this trophy
PEP Guardiola has dismissed suggestions City should now be regarded as Champions League favourites.
The Blues secured their place in the quarter-finals with a memorable victory over Real Madrid on Friday, beating the 13-times winners 2-1 at the Etihad Stadium to progress 4-2 on aggregate.
The Blues will now play Lyon in a one-off match in Lisbon on Saturday as the remainder of the competition is played as a minitournament.
City will travel as one of the stronger sides but, after failing to beat Lyon in last season’s group stage, Guardiola is taking nothing for granted - especially with a possible semi-final clash with Bayern Munich.
The City manager said: “You speak with all the teams who will be there, they’ll all think they have a chance.
“Why are we so special to win the Champions League than the other ones? I don’t see one reason why. To win this Champions League you have to beat a lot of teams of the quality of Real Madrid.
“We played against Lyon last season and we lost and drew. We couldn’t beat them. That is the reality.
“It is incredible for us but at the end (of the day) it is the last 16. We still have three games.”
City had no supporters to roar them on but they played with a formidable intensity as they looked to build on their 2-1 first-leg advantage rather than defend it.
Gabriel Jesus was outstanding, first forcing an early error from Raphael Varane to tee up Raheem Sterling’s 100th City goal.
The Brazilian then took advantage of another Varane blunder to make it 2-1 after Karim Benzema had levelled on the night.
There was no way back for Real after that and Guardiola felt to beat a side of their calibre was landmark success for the club.
He said: “There are still many incredible teams left but the important first step for our confidence, for this year, for the future, was we beat Real Madrid.
“To win the Champions League you have to beat them, or Barcelona, Bayern Munich or the best Italian teams. You have to do it. “For us, for our club, these wins give us a lot of presence in Europe because it is just the last decade we were there. “It is so important, not just for the players, but for all the club, for the workers, for our fans.” Guardiola knows better than most how dangerous Real are, and he felt in the first half the visitors were so relaxed it looked like they were knocking the ball about in a friendly while his team struggled to deal with the big occasions - not helped by a problem the
To win the Champions League you have to beat Real, or Barcelona, Bayern Munich or the best Italian teams Pep Guardiola
manager himself created with the way he started his wingers.
A tactical change improved that in the second half, but as City kicked off and instantly created two chances that was also important mentally for both teams to show that the hosts would be looking to stretch their lead in the tie rather than simply defend it.
“The first half we spoke to try to play, to attack but it was not possible especially for the quality from the opponents,” said Guardiola.
“When you are there on the sidelines and you see the quality, personality, charisma they have - it looked like they were playing a friendly, they’ve played this kind of event 1000 times. We suffered a little bit from the pressure to play with the result and what we have to do but in the second half it helped us to play with the wingers wider and in one minute we had two chances.
“We showed for ourselves what we wanted to do.
“We showed to our opponents as well what we wanted to do, we didn’t just want to defend 1-1, we wanted to score goals.
“We created enough chances to score more goals, unfortunately we couldn’t do it.
“[Thibaut] Courtois made an incredible save.
“It was more than deserved for us to be in the next stage.”