UEFA Champions League Guardiola Impressed With Man City Performance Against Bayern Munich

Pep Guardiola reported feeling “exhausted” Manchester City demonstrated their street smarts in the Champions League by defeating Bayern Munich 4-1 on the road to the semifinals.

The Premier League champions drew 1-1 at Allianz Arena eight days after winning the first leg 3-0 at the Etihad Stadium to set up a matchup against Real Madrid, the current holders.

Erling Haaland missed a penalty in the first half, but after the interval, he gave City the lead with his 48th goal of the year.

Read Also:Guardiola Declares Man City Readiness For Bayern Munich

Manuel Akanji was penalized for what was deemed to be handball, and Joshua Kimmich stopped City from winning their 11th game in a row after a harsh penalty was awarded to him late in the game.

After making it to a third straight European semifinal, City is vying for a Champions League, Premier League, and FA Cup treble.

When the Premier League champions faced his former club Bayern on Wednesday, Guardiola was in command of the team for the 400th time. He believes their experience is helping them.

He told BT Sport: “We struggled in the first half. [Dayot] Upamecano broke all the lines down our left side and we struggled with [Kingsley] Coman.

“We were fortunate before the penalty miss, they had one or two chances and anything could happen but we defended really well.

“The finishing from Erling was really, really good. He is so young. The experience that we have in this competition, the players feel it a lot, they want to do it really well. The second half was much, much better since minute one.”

On Saturday, City will play in the FA Cup semifinal against Championship team Sheffield United, and Guardiola worries that weariness will be a problem.

He added: “We are exhausted. I don’t know how we recover to play against Sheffield United [in the FA Cup semi-final].

Now is a tough moment for the game on Saturday, but we have to play then as [Manchester) United play in the Europa League [so play Brighton and Hove Albion in the FA Cup on Sunday].”


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