Spanish coach, Pep Guardiola has hammered on the importance of today's showdown between his English side and French giant, Monaco.
Pep Guardiola
Manchester City manager, Pep Guardiola, has claimed the world is waiting to “kill” him and his team, if they fail to get a good result in Tuesday’s Champions League round-of-16 first-leg tie against Monaco.
Guardiola has never failed to reach the semi-final of the competition and has won it twice with Barcelona. City’s last game ended goalless with Championship side Huddersfield Town on Saturday and they take on the free-scoring Ligue 1 side at the Etihad.
“All of Europe is going to watch us, to analyse us, to kill us if we don’t win, to say how good we are when we win and that experience is beautiful to me,” Guardiola said at his media conference.
“It is not easy to be here. I said many times, in the Champions League the recent history is quite good but Manchester City were not there for a long time. I want the players to enjoy this moment – because it’s beautiful.
“People can think, ‘OK, it’s Man City, it’s English football, the most prestigious football, the most media, the most advertising, and you have to be here.’ But a lot of clubs, big clubs, are not here. We have to see that we are lucky guys.
“I always played this competition this way, even at Barcelona and Bayern where they had more experience of the competition. I still thought ‘Wow."