Soccer

Guardiola claims he could be sacked if Man City lose to Real Madrid

Manager looking forward to challenge of taking on Spanish giants in the Champions League

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola. Photograph: Michael Regan/Getty Images

Thu Feb 13 2020 - 20:00

Pep Guardiola has claimed Manchester City could sack him if they fail to beat Real Madrid in the Champions League.

City dismissing Guardiola is an unlikely scenario given his outstanding record at the club, for whom he has won five major trophies, including two Premier League titles, but he has failed to take the club beyond the quarter-finals of the Champions League in three previous attempts.

“I want to win the Champions League,” Guardiola told Sky Sports. “I dream [of it] and I will enjoy preparing for the games against Madrid, to see what we can do and this process, two weeks before, will be the happiest moments of my profession, to imagine what we can do to beat them.

“If we don’t beat them, okay, come the chairman or the sport director and say, ‘It’s not good enough, we want the Champions League, I’m going to sack you’.

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“Okay, [I’d say] , ‘Thank you, it was a pleasure’. I don’t know [if this would happen]. It has happened many times and could maybe happen.”

City play in Madrid in the first leg of their last-16 tie on February 26th.

Guardiola feels it is unfair to judge managers solely on trophies.

He said: “We give a bad, bad message for the new generation, for our kids, to just count the winner, the trophies to win. You say the season is a disaster but if you win the Champions League it will be exceptional. Why? It is difficult to win it.

“If you don’t, we can say in more than 100 years of history [there] were 100 failure seasons for Manchester City. That is not true.

“Always the people believe like you are Pep or Jürgen [Klopp] , or another name, you have to win all the titles every season and [get] 2,000 million points, [score] 2,000 million goals. Sometimes it is not possible.”

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