Guardiola breathes a sigh of relief to lead City to the Champions League semi-finals for the first time and responds to the critics

a City of Manchester He returned to the semi-finals of the Champions League. This Tuesday (14), the team repeated its victory in the first match by 2 to 1 on Borussia Dortmund And he won his place among the top four teams on the continent.

For Pep Guardiola, the rating was a bit special. Like the English club, the team has been knocked out in the semi-finals since 2016, when it competed with the Bayern Munich, Breaking the sequence of filtering operations that had accumulated it.

After the match, the Catalan coach celebrated the ranking, recalling the criticisms he had faced in recent years after the eliminations, citing in particular the game against the team. Tottenham.

“This competition is legal, but sometimes it is very unfair. When it left, everyone said it was a failure, even if we played 11 months in the Premier League and in the Cups.”

“We had a handball penalty that couldn’t be awarded and we could leave. We were away against Tottenham, from Llorente. The way we played in the last few minutes with a character we arrived,” he added.

Guardiola also evaluated his team’s performance in Wednesday’s match, in celebration of the fact that he had broken the “fate” he was going through.

“I am very happy for the club, our fans and our players. The second time the team goes to the semi-finals. It’s not a great story, but we are building it,” he said.

“In the second half we performed well. Very happy to be one of the 4 best teams in Europe. We will try to do well and have a good match in the semi-finals,” he ended.