Pep Guardiola has “no fear” of facing Real Madrid as his Man City side prepares for their Champions League clash.
The two clubs face off in the second leg of their quarter-final matchup at the Etihad Stadium on Wednesday, with kickoff scheduled for 8pm BST.
Carlo Ancelotti’s men showed they can hurt the Premier League champions in the first leg at the Bernabeu, scoring three times past Stefan Ortega as the game ended all square.
Guardiola says he has a lot of respect for the 14-time winners of the competition, but he is certainly not quivering at the thought of playing against them this week.
“No, I don’t fear them, but I respect them a lot,” he told his pre-match press conference on Tuesday.
“I have faced them many times. I’m not going to talk great things about them, and give you my opinion. I respect Real Madrid. And if I say I’m scared of them, I would be false.”
Man City are still competing on three fronts this season and could achieve an unprecedented second successive Treble. But Guardiola refuses to get ahead of himself ahead of facing Real Madrid in the Champions League and Chelsea in the FA Cup semi-finals this weekend.
“I am not going to say ‘don’t feel this’ to my players, but I have a different opinion,” he said. “We are far away from those hypothetical dreams. When we are in the final of the FA Cup and two or three games in the Premier League and in the final of the Champions League I will start to think about that.
“But you see how strong Chelsea are and what is a few points difference with six games to play in the Premier League. When I was a few points behind I said we had to do our job. It is the same feeling now.
“It’s like when we drew against Arsenal and the computer said we had no chance and now we have a chance – I don’t know if the computer can play left-back or right-back – but we just have to go one game at a time.
“I started to think of the Treble last season only when we beat Manchester United in the FA Cup final. The success for me this season is that we are still there after winning the Treble and are four or five weeks away and still in contention.”
