Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City will be taking on Diego Simeone’s Atletico Madrid in the UEFA Champions League quarter-final first leg. Atletico Madrid beat Manchester City’s neighbours Manchester United in the Round of 16.
Pep Guardiola has been accused of overthinking his tactics in the Champions League with Bayern Munich and Manchester City as he has been unable to win the UCL with both of his last two teams.
Guardiola has now spoken about overthinking in his pre-match conference before facing Simeone’s team tomorrow.
Pep Guardiola says he always overthinks in the Champions League
The Manchester City manager said, via Marca: “In the Champions League, always I overthink.”
“I overthink a lot, that’s why I’ve had very good results in the Champions League.”
“That’s why I overthink and create stupid tactics. Tonight I’ll find inspiration and do incredible tactics tomorrow. We’ll play with 12 tomorrow!”
Guardiola refused to comment on whose playing style is better between him and Simeone. He said: I won’t talk one second about these stupid debates.”
“Everyone tries to win the games. If they win, they will be right, if we win, we are right.”
“There are lots of styles in this game, mainly based on the quality of the players. This team are champions of Spain.”
“There is a misconception about the way Simeone plays. It’s more offensive than people believe. He doesn’t want to take a risk in the build-up but they are very good in the final third.”
“They are so competitive. It depends on the movement of the game and they know how to play at the exact moment.”
“They are a very rich team tactically. What can we do to annoy them? That’s what we will do tomorrow and next week.”
Guardiola further added: “I didn’t invent football and I’ve never scored a goal or saved a penalty as coach.”
“I wish I was that important. What we’ve done at Barcelona and Bayern and here, Johan Cruyff and Carles Rexach also did at Barcelona.”
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