Pep Guardiola, 55, the Manchester City manager, joked about the upcoming clash between Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich during his press conference. With a heavy dose of irony, the Catalan coach initially feigned to downplay the match before admitting his enjoyment of this major European fixture.
Guardiola: “Really, really rubbish, rubbish players!”
“The day before, I looked at the schedule, PSG-Bayern Munich, and I thought, what a lousy match,” he smiled. “The managers aren’t good, Luis (Enrique) and Vinny (Kompany). Really, really rubbish, rubbish players! So I decided to go.
I love English football, and I went to see Stockport. I watched the match when I got back from Stockport and I’ll be on my sofa” in front of the television for the return leg next Wednesday in Germany. That’s nice. “That’s football,” Pep Guardiola remarked. “It was a good match, and the next day (Atlético Madrid-Arsenal), in a different style, was also a good match,” as reported by Le Parisien.
Guardiola thus played his favorite role: that of the faux-blasé critic who takes aim at everyone before casually adding that he loved it. By targeting Luis Enrique, Vincent Kompany, and the players with deliberate exaggeration, the Manchester City manager obviously wasn’t trying to belittle PSG-Bayern. Quite the opposite, in fact: his irony works because the match offered exactly what top-level European football promises at its best, combining intensity, technical quality, and risk-taking.
Behind the provocation lies, above all, the perspective of a lover of the game, capable of enjoying a spectacular match without donning the mantle of an overly serious pundit. And when Guardiola pretends to disdain a match, it is often because he has watched it with a broad smile, like a successful ball clearance.
