Pep Guardiola: Champions League destiny is already written | Man City’s Erling Haaland, Bernardo Silva tactics | Football News

Pep Guardiola spoke about his love for the Champions League ahead of Manchester City’s last-16 first leg at RB Leipzig – but admitted the pressure placed on him to win the competition again has shifted his approach to it.

Guardiola won the Champions League twice at Barcelona but has been unable to lift the trophy again at Bayern Munich or Manchester City, despite substantial domestic success with both clubs.

City were runners-up in 2020/21 but Guardiola says nothing he achieves in the competition “will be enough” for his critics.

As a result he has come to the conclusion he should just enjoy the “privilege” of competing in Europe’s elite club competition and accept “the destiny is already written”.

“It’s a fantastic competition. I love it,” he said, “We love to be here. It’s a privilege. I always had that feeling.

“I don’t know how far we’ll go but already being here at this stage and to qualify last season to be here… Every season it is more and more difficult just to qualify for the Champions League next season. To go through the group stage is difficult, you know how many good teams cannot be there. The dream is to go forward and do a good game [against Leipzig] and go to the quarter-finals.

“Of course, it’s an international competition, so you can take a plane, we dress beautiful to fly and go to Europe to try to show our football, our game in a new stadium, a new culture.

“If my career finished tomorrow because I can’t be a manager, I was more than blessed and grateful for what I’ve done with Barcelona, Bayern Munich and here [at City] in European competition.

“I couldn’t expect to have the career I’ve had. Not just the success that we had altogether, just for the way we play, I love it. I cannot ask more.

“We want to do our best. If it’s going to happen it’s going to happen. At the end the destiny is already written. We’ve been close, sometimes not, sometimes closer.

“I have the feeling what we have done – all of us – for many years, whatever happens it’s going to fail. Whatever I do personally with the future, what I have done in this past, I’m going to fail, nothing will be enough.

“So that’s why when I learned that in Manchester City, just have fun, enjoy being here in this press conference, afterwards have a good dinner with good wine, watch Real Madrid and Liverpool, a little bit of Napoli… it’s always a pleasure to watch. Prepare for the game, motivate the players, ‘let’s go guys and try to do it again’. And that’s it.”

Guardiola went on to suggest the expectations placed on him and his players are unrealistic.

“Everyone put a perspective that everything is a disaster if you don’t win some prizes,” he said. “I don’t know if everyone puts this perspective for themselves. I don’t want to put this perspective on myself.

“I’m blessed to be here. I never thought when I arrived [at City] every year we have to win the Premier League or every year you have to win three or four Champions League. Except Real Madrid the rest can’t do it!

“The last two seasons we’ve been really close and played really, really good games. And we try to do it again.”

Haaland, Bernardo and being less predictable

Guardiola also went into depth about his team’s style of play, following criticism from his former Barcelona forward Thierry Henry that City were too predictable with Erling Haaland up front.

The comments came before City’s win at Arsenal and draw at Nottingham Forest on Saturday.

Within his response Guardiola went on to back his decision to play Bernardo Silva out of position at left-back, despite Forest’s equaliser coming from a cross from that side of the pitch.

“I understand exactly what Titi [Henry] wants to say for the fact we play and put the balls to Haaland,” said Guardiola. “[But] to be less predictable is not in terms of Haaland. It’s in terms of the way we can make the process to arrive in different channels into the final third, not just with Erling.

“People say we concede a goal [from] the left side because Bernardo is playing there but the people don’t realise. And I understand the view is something like the left-back has to defend in that position.

“Bernardo helps us to do what we’ve done against Nottingham Forest. Without Bernardo it would not be possible to concede [only] one counter-attack and one or two actions at the end and the amount of control of the game to avoid the transitions.

“It is 100 per cent sure against Nottingham we were not predictable. Absolutely not. But if you arrive here and try crosses for Erling, Erling, Erling or just pass to Erling it would be predictable. To be less predictable we need more runners from Kevin [De Bruyne], more runners from [Ilkay] Gundogan, from the wingers so we arrive in the final third. But arrive in the final third with the process.

“I’m not stupid to say Bernardo is not a full-back. But he can do it because he’s so intelligent, he’s so clever, against one-on-ones he’s a really good defender and with the ball he can help us to do the special way we want to play.

“That’s why with that position it happened with Oleksandr Zinchenko, we made 100 points with Fabian Delph. In Europe and the Premier League we played really good. We have these types of players that make our game predictable… but come on he has scored 31 goals, we are the team who scored the most goals in the Premier League. We can do good things with Erling as well!”