Pep Guardiola went through the press room of the Atatürk stadium in Istanbul and reviewed his career: “The secret of my success is having had great players; Messi in the past and now Haaland. I’m not kidding. Every coach who have triumphed is because they have had great players. A coach has never scored a goal”, he explained.
For Guardiola, who has been at City for seven seasons and has yet to win the Champions League, the Orejona is a positive obsession: “The Champions League is absolutely a dream. To achieve things you have to have obsession, desire, desire. It’s a dream, but the obsession is also positive. We are going to try to achieve it. If Manchester City and Inter are in the final it is because we will have done something well”.
The Catalan coach also recalled the final lost in 2021 against Chelsea in Porto: “I would like to say what lessons we learned from that day, but I don’t know them. This is a different game, two years later and with different players. The plan of Two years ago against Chelsea it didn’t work out and people say I made the wrong decisions. I have a plan for tomorrow and if we win it will be a good plan.”
Guardiola stressed that Inter has a bigger history than City (they have won three Champions League), but that “it’s not important. In the end it’s a football game. The team that does the best when the 90 minutes are up will win. “The important thing is that tomorrow at 10 p.m. in Istanbul we play our best. The favorite doesn’t matter, what happens is what matters tomorrow. Whoever wins will be the favourite.”
Haaland’s performance, who has only scored one goal in the last seven games, does not seem to worry the coach of the English team: “I have no doubts. I am not here to comment on Haaland’s goal average. If you have doubts about his average, You must be the only one. Tomorrow he will be ready to win the Champions League”.
Guardiola is concerned about Inter “the way they play, the high pressure. Onana is a great goalkeeper; Bastoni’s contribution on the left flank; the quality with which they connect with the forwards, the extra passes… We have “We have to defend those connections with the ball, trying to attack. It will be difficult against a defense of five, but we will have to find an effective solution.”
