UEFA Champions League: Manchester City 3-1 FC Barcelona
Manchester City played probably the best game of their season, scoring three goals to might FC Barcelona. More importantly, City found the resources to overcome a 1-0 deficit when Leo Messi found the net at the half-hour mark. Coach Guardiola got his revenge against his former team following the severe 4-0 loss on matchday 3 at Camp Nou.
He comments the performance of his squad with 2 goals from Gündogan:
“If you talk about the first 30 minutes, we are not able to compete against the best teams. This club was 25, 30 years out of Europe, while Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich were playing every year. We need time. The people don’t give us time but the club give us time. We compete against them one time, we play long balls because we are not ready to keep the ball.
We are three or four months into playing a different way. We try and now we won against the best team. For the future generations they are going to realise: wow, these guys are able to beat the best team. It is the same when the group led by Joe Hart, Vincent Kompany won the Premier League twice, so the players who come now know they have to do that.
You need 10 years, 15, 20 to stay there. We are going to reduce that time to leave nights for the Manchester City fans like today. Sergio [Aguero] is so important. Without him we cannot achieve our targets. I am so happy for him because he was so happy.”
Coach Barcelona Luis Enrique comments:
“We played a great 40 minutes, with scoring chances, we could have put the game away, we dominated, and we didn’t give them any chances to score. We made countless errors with possession in the second half, mistakes we do not usually commit. In the second half we expected to win back control, but it was not to be because they were good and we made errors we do not usually make. 40 minutes for us, 50 for them.
They have good forwards who hurt us in transition. Perhaps they did not press us as hard as we expected in the beginning. In the second half they were very aggressive, they forced us into more errors than we usually make. We will try to win the two games we have left.”
