JAKARTA – Pep Guardiola insists Manchester City need to get up after being eliminated from the semifinals of the European Champions League this season. Because they have to focus on defending the Premier League trophy.
Guardiola's squad failed to reach the Champions League final this season after losing 1-3 to Real Madrid in the second leg on Thursday, May 5 early morning.
The Citizen is expected not to drag on with that result because they have to compete with Liverpool for the league title.
"[The defeat] was difficult for us, I can't deny it. We are very close to the Champions League final. Now we need to process this defeat and come back," Guardiola said as quoted by BBC Sport.
City's chances of reaching the European Champions League final this season are very open after they took the lead through Riyad Mahrez's goal at the Bernabeu. The goal made The Citizen already winning 5-3 on aggregate.
However, bad luck befell Guardiola's team when a normal match entered the final minutes. Rodrygo managed to score two goals in just two minutes respectively in the 90th and 91+ minutes.
This goal made the match had to continue to the extra time because the aggregate of the two teams was still as strong as 5-5. In the 2 x 15 round, City conceded again through Karim Benzema's penalty.
"Our first half was not good enough, but we didn't suffer too much. We found our tempo after the break but we didn't, played well. Football is unpredictable and you have to accept it," said the Spaniard.
The results obtained by City make Guardiola a coach who has failed six times in the semifinals or the most compared to other managers. He was side by side with Portuguese tactician Jose Mourinho with the same number of failures in that round.
Prior to the failure with City, Guardiola had run aground in the semifinals with Barcelona in the 2010/2011 and 2011/2012 seasons. The same bad luck happened when he was in charge of Bayern Munich, where he recorded defeats in the semifinals of 2013/2014, 2014/2015 and 2015/2016.
Despite failing in the European Champions League, Guardiola still has a chance to get the English League trophy. He and his team currently lead the top of the standings with a one point advantage over Liverpool in second place.
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