Spaniard Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has admitted that he could be fired if the team is eliminated from the Champions League’s round of 16 against Real Madrid.
Since the coach joined the English club, he has won five national titles, including two English Premier Leagues, but he hasn’t fulfilled the dream of every Man City fan of winning a UEFA Champions League. On every occasion that Man City featured the European Cup under Pep, they didn’t pass from the quarter-finals.
In the first time, it was against Liverpool. They ended up being thrashed in a 5-1 aggregate to the Reds. But it’s comprehensible, as the Reds have won it six times already, and experience counts a lot.
Then it was Tottenham, and no experience excuses were accepted this time, as the Spurs, in terms of Champions League experience, is as null as Man City. The outcome, however, was the same. The Blues ended up defeated on the away-goal rule.
However, despite spending a lot of money – and getting punished by UEFA for this -, Man City has done quite well in England under Guardiola. He doesn’t seem to be really confident about his permanence ahead of the Blues in case of another Champions League deception though.
- If we do not go through, the president or the sporting director can come to me and say: “We are not satisfied, we want the Champions League and we will fire you”. I would say, “Okay, thank you very much and it was a pleasure”. This has happened on several occasions and can happen again.
To make things worse for Guardiola this season, his team has no chances of winning the Premier League once again, and he might need to get satisfied with the domestic cups. So it’s basically Champions League or nothing.
- I want to win the Champions League. I dream about it and I will enjoy preparing the team to play against Real… These two weeks before the game are the happiest moments of my profession, to imagine what we can do to beat them.
It’s not like Guardiola would get fired from Man City and he would be unemployed for the rest of his life. It’s also true that Man City will have to go deep to try to find someone in the same level of Guardiola in case that happens.