Guardiola relishing pressure in Europe
City face must-win away tie after opening defeat Manager denies £200m move for PSG’S Mbappe
Manchester City are unexpectedly under pressure to beat Hoffenheim in their second Champions League Group game, but manager Pep Guardiola feels it is exactly the sort of test they need to pass if they are going eventually to thrive in the knockout stage.
City’s shock 2-1 home defeat by Lyon a fortnight ago demands a positive response and Hoffenheim, who finished third in the Bundesliga last season, are widely regarded as the weakest side in Group F.
With tricky-looking trips to France for the return fixture against Lyon and another long journey to Ukraine to face Shakhtar Donetsk – where they lost last season in their final group game – City need to inject momentum into their European campaign.
And it is these sorts of stressful, must-win fixtures that Guardiola feels City still need to handle in Europe after they strolled through their group last season, only to lose home and away to Liverpool in the quarter-final.
Defeat in Germany would mean City had lost five European games on the spin and there would be difficult questions for Guardiola.
“We were not so bad against Lyon,” said Guardiola, when asked what he had learnt from that defeat. “Maybe in the first half we were not like normal, but it’s the Champions League, so all the teams are good, that’s why it’s complicated. Except for Real Madrid, for the last three years, nobody else wins it. It’s so tough.
“In the last five or six years, we’ve made a step forward. Maybe we need to live a difficult moment in the competition. In the last two seasons, when I’m here, and we qualified quite comfortably [we have not had that test].
“Maybe you have to realise that you can suffer in the group stage and make a step forward in the knockout phase. We were not able to do that last season, it’s because we were not good enough and we have tried to prepare much better for this season. We have five finals now to qualify, we cannot lose a lot of games and we’ve already lost the first one. We know the situation we are in. It’s five finals and this is the first one against Hoffenheim.”
For captain Vincent Kompany, 32, this could be his final chance to win the Champions League as a player as he enters the final year of his contract.
“I don’t know if we have to win the Champions League,” explained defender Kompany. “I don’t know if you can speak in those terms, it’s the last step we haven’t achieved yet and the club is always aiming to progress.
“There’s nothing more we haven’t achieved, maybe winning [league] competitions together. But this is such a difficult competition to win. I don’t want to put the pressure all on the manager, but we’ll see. We’ll do our best, I’d love to win it with City.”
Guardiola did not appear to be in the mood for long conversations at his pre-match press conference, admitting it would be nice to be back on the touchline tonight after missing the Lyon defeat while serving a touchline ban, before warning that Hoffenheim were dangerous opponents, despite the fact they finished behind Bayern Munich and Schalke last term. But he did bite on a question asking whether City were likely to pursue a £200 million move for the Paris St-germain striker Kylian Mbappe.
“That is not going to happen,” he said. “Sometimes I don’t understand where the news comes from. Manchester City aren’t going to spend the money that Mbappe deserves, or that PSG deserves. PSG are not going to sell this kind of player to any other club in the world in the next years, I guess.
“People should be more respectful of PSG, respectful of Manchester City, for the players from PSG, for the players from Man City, they should have more respect.”