Pep Guardiola, Manchester City coach, assured this Tuesday at a press conference that “quality” is not demonstrated by “scoring goals”, praised the match that his players completed against Real Madrid (1-1) and highlighted the performance of Antonio Rüdiger and David Alaba, who completely dried up Erling Haaland.
“In the first minutes we were better. Quality is not shown by scoring goals. We have been there and we found the goal when Madrid was playing better. that’s football. Now we know what we have done. Maybe we adjust something and we have to find the balance and see if we can attack a bit. Alaba and Rudiger were very close to Haaland and it has not been easy to find a place for him. Maybe we have to adjust something in the second leg. Play with a little more rhythm. We will be more comfortable with our people. Whoever wins will go to the final,” she said.
Besides, insisted on the match that Alaba and Rüdiger completed and recognized that when Real Madrid applied high pressure, the ball had to be sent to Haaland more directly. And the two Real Madrid defenders always appeared: “The two closed very well. They are fast and good defenders. It was not easy to find them. Madrid have defended very well. It was not easy,” he repeated.
For Guardiola, the objective of his team now is to “recover” and go “game by game” and he said that the result (1-1) is good because he was aware that achieving a comprehensive result at the Bernabéu was very complicated. “I would have liked to win, of course. I didn’t expect to play the match we’ve played, I didn’t expect to win by a big difference. They have the ability to gather you in one area and then go to the other side. It’s difficult to counteract. The first part we were Well. I didn’t have much feeling of scoring a goal if I had that density. I have an idea of how to do it to adjust that for the second leg. When they come out we have to make sure they don’t sink us. Vinicius can sink us. We’ll see in the next game”, pointed.
“I am very happy with the game we played and with the result. I know the team we play againstI saw him last year. I am very, very satisfied with our team. In the return it may be that Julián Álvarez has minutes. There are seven or eight days to see it. Let’s see how we get there. But yes, you can enter at the beginning or at the end. There are players who can change the pace like Foden or Julián. I had the feeling that this was just another midfielder game with Bernardo and Grealish”, he concluded.