Pep Guardiola has said Manchester City are currently not good enough to challenge for the Champions League but promises they will be a more feared opposition by the time they face Bayern Munich or Real Madrid in the playoff round next month after surviving a difficult night against Club Brugge.
City were heading out of the competition after going behind just before the interval when Brugge finally made the most of one of their counterattacks, concluding with Raphael Onyedika firing past Ederson. City rallied after the break and secured a 22nd-placed finish in the league stage to qualify for the next round thanks to goals from Mateo Kovacic and substitute Savinho either side of an own goal from Joel Ordóñez.
Asked if he thought City were capable of winning the Champions League, Guardiola said: “Right now, no, but the year that we won [2023] I didn’t think it. I’m so pragmatic. They have more experience than us and Madrid have been back in the last games and Bayern have had an incredible season with Vinnie [Kompany]. If you had to play tomorrow it would be difficult, but in two weeks I don’t know the position we will be in. The players in the locker room said Bayern or Real – it’s OK, we will be fit and see what happens.”
Guardiola was without a number of injured players for the win over Brugge but hopes Rúben Dias, Nathan Aké, Oscar Bobb and Jérémy Doku may return in time for the playoffs, while new signings Omar Marmoush, Abdukodir Khusanov and Vitor Reis will be available after being ineligible to feature on Wednesday. “I don’t know if they [Bayern and Real] are happy to play against us but it is what it is,” Guardiola said. “Both of them right now are better than us … we will be better than we are right now because new players will come back, and the new signings.”
The evening started badly at the Etihad Stadium after an inferno gutted one of the merchandise huts outside the ground, forcing the cancellation of the unveiling of the club’s new signings. “When I saw the fire before the game, I thought at half-time journalists had their headline already,” Guardiola said. “We were out, when you play with nothing to lose we go through and go forward. The first half was so academic but we missed the spark. Savinho helped us like all season when he played there – he changed the game.”
