Josep Guardiola, Getty Images December 11, 2025, 09:21

The day before, English Manchester City beat Real Madrid in the away match of the sixth round of the UEFA Champions League.

Real Madrid – Manchester City 1:2 Video goals and review of the Champions League match

After the end of the game, the head coach of the “towns” Josep Guardiola commented on the performance of his own team.

“Don’t get me wrong, winning at the Bernabeu is a big achievement for us. Especially in this competition.

But at the same time, the level of competition, to reach the semi-finals, the final, requires a better game than we had today – that’s for sure. And we will work on it. The way we played today is not enough.

There were incredibly many, many good things, and I am happy for the players, for their efforts, soul, heart, desire to win. I know my players, so we will be even better! We will improve over time, that’s for sure.

Today we had five, six, seven players who came here for the first time and played their first game, or their second game, they had to experience that.

I’ve been to semi-finals, Champions League finals many times, so I know what it takes to compete at that level.

Can this team make that progress this season? Yes, definitely! If there are no injuries, it will happen for sure! One hundred percent! If we have the right desire to do it, and our coach is so smart… That’s why we will do it!

I take this result in stride, but I understand the reality that we have to play better. I understand that sometimes anything is possible in this stadium against such an opponent.

And ultimately it affects the judges as well. Nico O’Reilly was shown a yellow card for a foul on Valverde, and Rudiger was not shown a second yellow card two minutes later. It was the same action, exactly the same action. I would say that Rüdiger’s action is even a bit more brutal.

That is why we have to deal with many situations in these stages and it will also make us stronger.

We did good things, but we started with a lot of mistakes… Every pass was aimed not to lose the ball, not to hurt ourselves. But it happens, so it’s something we have to improve.

Now we are far from winning the Champions League. We will be better in February. We have been to this stadium before, played much better than today, but we lost.

That’s why I think the players made an incredible effort. An incredibly good result. The team spirit is incredible. But there is still room for improvement,” said the Spanish expert.

In the next round, English Manchester City will visit Norwegian Bude/Glimt.