Guardiola criticizes talking about the ease of City’s mission against Leipzig

Spanish coach Pep Guardiola, coach of Manchester City, criticized the talk that his team was expected to easily win at the German Leipzig stadium, after the two teams’ match ended in a 1-1 draw yesterday evening in the first leg of the Champions League round of 16. Algerian star Riyad Mahrez scored for Manchester City in the 27th minute, before Croatian Josko Gvardiol scored the equalizing goal for Leipzig in the 70th minute.

Thus, the decision to qualify for the quarter-finals in the continental competition was postponed to the second leg, which will be held at the Etihad Stadium in Manchester, England, on March 14th.
Guardiola told BT Sport after the match: “People were expecting us to win 5-0. This is not realistic. We have passed the group stage in a very competitive tournament with many important teams.”

He added, “The match is difficult, we were aware of that, our fourth match in ten days, away matches, travel, and people expect victories.” He pointed out, “I know we are a good team and we continue to do good things, but people expect us to come here and win 4 or 5/0, we cannot do that.” The former coach of Bayern Munich expressed his happiness with Manchester City’s “general performance”, explaining: “We came back after the goal we conceded, we played a good 15 or 20 minutes, we had good chances, both teams are in both halves of the field, we go to Manchester for the decisive match.” The Spanish coach concluded by saying, “Sayed about the whole match, not just the first half, what do you expect? Did we have a friendly match here?”