Guardiola talks about the Real Madrid player he wished miss the match: “He made us defend much more than we wanted”
Pep Guardiola, coach of Manchester City, spoke after the 1-1 draw with Real Madrid in the first leg of the Champions League semi-final match that was held on Tuesday evening at the Santiago Bernabeu.
The Spanish coach began his speech by saying: “The return match will be like the final in front of our fans. They scored when we were better and we scored when they were better than us in the second half. Congratulations to my team. In this kind of match you need your best players and Ederson was exceptional, Kyle Walker was exceptional against one of the best opponents you can face around the world.
He added, “We defended the penalty area well, the effort was amazing. Now it’s like a playoff. We can defend better in some sections, maybe we can attack a little differently. Alaba and Rudiger were very close to Erling, so there were very few places for him. Maybe we can adjust some things for next week.
He continued: “We started really well in the second half. They played a lot of passes on the left and they’re really good there, but then we scored a great goal. We have a final next Wednesday at home [in front of] our fans.”
And he went on: “I am happy with the 1-1 draw .. Instead of a 3-0 defeat, we will watch the match again now. In some parts we were good, but I think we could have gone for more goals with more strength, and I have an idea of what to do next week. But I need to watch this match again.”
Guardiola spoke in particular of Toni Kroos, saying: “Toni Kroos made us defend much more than we wanted. If he hadn’t played the pivotal role today, I can tell you we would have defended a lot less.”
Source: UEFA
