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Guardiola: Purely focusing on the Champions League is a gamble not worth taking

tlw content

By tlw content,
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tlw content Grand Master

tlw content

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Pep Guardiola has claimed that winning the Champions League is similar to a spin of a roulette wheel at a casino and he much prefers the success of a title winning campaign.

In a clear attempt to downplay the achievement of his closest rivals Liverpool ahead of their first meeting in the community shield this afternoon, Guardiola left no one in doubt to where his priority lies.

The Mirror reports Guardiola as saying:

" The Premier League is always the most important thing, the stand-out competition, because it is every weekend.

“I think we will be closer to achieving in Europe when we have more Premier League titles. That is the right process at Manchester City.
 

The furthest that City have gone in Europe's elite competition in a semi final in 2015/6 when they lost to Real Madrid 1-0 over  two legs. City are always one of the favourites with online betting sites but despite their domestic dominance they have under-achieved in Europe. 

The manager who won the competition twice in his time with his time with Barcelona admits that his team has to do better in the competition but it is not his number one priority.

"Of course we have to win in Europe because it’s an important tournament and difficult to win.

"But I am not going to go to the casino and gamble everything I have in my pocket on just seven games.

“From my point of view, that’s too risky. 

"To maintain the health and focus of the team, it always has to be the Premier League.

" Why am I going to wait until February for seven games and put everything on black?

 

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Guardiola who clearly wanted to get a few things of his chest before the season started, felt that his players have been under appreciated as not one City player made the cut for the FIFA Best Football awards.

In comparison the Reds had three nominations in Virgil Van Dijk, Mo Salah and Sadio Mane due to their outstanding triumph in Europe.

" Of course we would like to win the Champions League - so big respect to Liverpool.
“But is why is that a higher (achievement) than what we did in 11 months?

" I am pretty sure Liverpool would have liked to have won the Premier League, because it is 29 years since they last did.

"It’s incredibly good what they did in the Champions League, but we were better in the league.

"What we did (domestic treble) has never been achieved before. 

"It was awesome – and I think my colleagues and football players worldwide know how difficult it is.

" It doesn’t matter if the people who consider the UEFA awards or FIFA awards don’t select one of our players.

"But I don’t think one player had a better season that Bernardo Silva, for example, who also won the Nations League with Portugal.

"And the year we won the title with 100 points, there was huge respect for Mohamed Salah – but come on, guys!

“Kevin De Bruyne, that season, was above and beyond any normal situation.

"Of course, it is about opinions – and of course we accept it if our players don’t deserve to win.

"Maybe we have to win five titles - or maybe Bernardo has to win six

"Or maybe we have to get 250 points next season – but we are going to try"

The fuse has been lit for another fascinating battle between the two current powerhouses in English (and quite possibly world football.)

Let's hope come this time next year, the Spaniard has plenty to whinge about courtesy of an empty trophy cabinet from this season.
 


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Guest Alex_K

Guest Alex_K

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3 hours ago, Grinch said:

Bitter much.   He is right though, the league will always be the bread and butter and much harder to win. 

Nope. The European Cup is the harder trophy to win. As attested to by the number of domestic league title winners vs number of English European Cup winners.

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Grinch Grand Master

Grinch

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34 minutes ago, Alex_K said:

Nope. The European Cup is the harder trophy to win. As attested to by the number of domestic league title winners vs number of English European Cup winners.

 

That makes no sense.   It's won by more teams because its a cup and a side only good enough to finish 5th in their league has gone onto win it more than once. 

 

It's obviously harder to win the league, no point pretending otherwise just cause we're European Champions again. 

 

We'll be in the last eight of it again this season and from there anyone can win it.   We've fucking no hope of another title challenge. 

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Jairzinho Grand Master

Jairzinho

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I think they're just different.

 

The league is easier for City to win because 70% of the teams don't even try against them. They play against a much bigger variety of tactical set ups in Europe and Guardiola's naivety often gets exposed (pre City as well as now). They're also a small club with fuck all atmosphere and none of the European giants fear them.

 

The European Cup is arguably easier for us to win because we do have European pedigree and an ability to make incredible comebacks, in no small part down to being a big club. However, in the league we're up against a side with the budget of a small country. They could have six first teamers injured all season and probably finish 2nd at worst. If we got six first teamers injured for any length of time we'd finish about 7th.

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