'No regrets': Guardiola on Real Madrid knocking Man City out of Champions League

Yes, I would have preferred to win. First of all, congratulations to Real Madrid to read the semi finals. They defend so deep within crowd of solidarity. So we did everything. I don’t have absolutely any regret about. We have done so always. We try as a managers and so create more and concede less in every single game because we believe that that helps to be close to win and we did everything. So defensively, offensively they make a good, a good goal, so 1-2 or three or four transition, but it is normal in that level and the quality they have. But we play exceptional in all departments and everything and unfortunately we could not win. So that’s where it is. Pep, how do you pick the players up? Because you’ve already spoken about the schedule being really tight for Saturday’s game. It’s a huge game obviously in terms of your season. How do you pick the players up, Get recovery because of some extra time? Yeah, we’ll see, We’ll see tomorrow. So now it’s rest and tomorrow come back and and then Friday we travel to to London to play to play the game. So we’ll see maybe Friday, Saturday, of course, we’ll see how the people react for the mood and of course the recovery. Winning is easier than losing that days, but it’s where it is. So it’s a semi final effect up. We will try to compete as best as possible. James, I think for the second leg last year said that you were 100% confident that you win. Sorry. Last year, yeah, you were really confident you were going to win that game after what happened previously. I wonder, did you have that same feeling going into this game? If not, why not for the way we play? Yeah, it was 223 years ago and we we won for three. We play standing as well and last season as well, and the three games were quite similar. Today they defend deeper than the previous seasons and we create the chances to do it. But football is about to score goals and they did it a little bit better in the penalty spot than us. So but I had the duty to to say thank you for deep in my heart to display us for the way they play, the play against that team and the way we play it. But so this is our result as a business and they will be in semi finals. We are not for little margins but the performance and everything, the commitment for everything was exceptional. Sam, you’ve controlled so much of that game and gone out on a penalty shootout. Does that make it more painful to go out when you’ve played so well is what it is. Sometimes you win a penalty, sometimes not. For the way we played, you should have done it before, but we will not convert the chances that we had and we defend really well. Transitioned with our physicality with Mano, with with Jessica, with Kyle, and everyone was at a high, high level. So we spoke to win, Real Madrid had to perform our best and we were our best, but it was not enough. 22 quick questions about the penalties. Did you think Bernardo was affected by the ball not back to him? I don’t know. Bernardo last for the first. I want to take it. I want to take it as a reliable player and decide to to shoot in that way. But absolutely Bernardo was again, what a game he played. So no, it’s happened. We’ll go out and yeah, it worries we we tend to keep Kevin on or knowing that there was a possibility of penalties. Erling Erling and Kevin asked me to to go out could not continue like like Manu. So the game we were playing they were amazing. It was a big fan to make a lot of substitutions but Kevin Erling and man who asked me to go out because we could not continue. Last question. English, please. With Rob. Real Madrid have obviously got some fantastic attacking players but were you surprised at how deep they wanted to defend? And I don’t judge the ideas for my from Carlo on the the way they decide to play. I’m not here to do this. OK. We’ll take some questions in Spanish. Paul, just on the side, please. In the blue hoodie, you said that many occasions publicly, apart from showing respect to Real Madrid, you’ve said publicly that to win this competition you need to knock out Real Madrid. From the footballing aspect. The fact that they’ve gone through, it’s very difficult to explain. What explanation can you give for what’s happened today? That’s football in this competition. That’s the way football happens, that’s football. In other sports, for statistics we would have won, but in football it’s the marvellous thing about football. This is what happens. The way that we played, the amount of shots we had being in there and the transitions we had. We arrived many times and they scored a a great goal with the control of Bellingham and the ball they put through. But we’ve mentioned it before. We didn’t expect to win four nil that last year and to score four goals. Last time we needed to play our performance that showed we were ourselves the way that we’ve been for for so many years. And that’s what we did tonight. We did it in many things. It’s not been enough, OK, we’re knocked out and that’s, you know, we could have scored earlier in the way that we’re playing. And then when you go to penalties, whatever happens, happens. I have to say congratulations to Real Madrid because their ability to resist and defend, they did that fantastically well right up until the end of the game. And we weren’t able to find that final pass, just those small, finer details to enable us to score that goal. You said in your first answer that you’ve played exceptionally well. I agree with that because I think you played fantastic well throughout the game. Madrid had to do what they did. Do you have the feeling that we’ve seen kind of this new classico of Europe, Real Madrid against City. If they enjoyed it, if everyone enjoyed it, fantastic. I’m sure the Madrid fans will enjoy it even more. I think those three games that we’ve had recently have been very similar to tonight. We’ve played really well and the Burnabout is the same. We’ve got a good result at the Santiago Burnabout. We weren’t able to finish the game or I can only ask what they did tonight. My players, we will continue to do what we’ve been doing for many years. Of course you have to give credit to Real Madrid. They were able to resist, to put up with what we gave them tonight. Often we’ve played teams like that who stay very deep and often we found the way to unlock the door. But that’s what we were lacking tonight. We weren’t able to do it. There were shots, there were shots that were blocked and that’s it. We accept it and that’s all we can do. Hi Pep. From a footballing point of view, I don’t know if you find many difference between the four nil and the 11 is the only thing that you were missing tonight was a bit of look. Joan Croif said look doesn’t exist and I agree with him. We couldn’t score tonight, we couldn’t score the extra goal. We did almost everything. To almost do it and to lose like this it hurts. But sometimes you have to say, but what a fantastic way to to lose. We we weren’t bad, you know, We’ll feel bad tonight and we’ll have to kind of lift ourselves up. But as I’ve always said, you just try and do it and we’ve done all we all we can. What can I say to these players who have been here for so long? We’ve always and now we’ve gone on to show that we can play well against the big side like Real Madrid. That’s what you can say. What else can I say? What more explanations can I give? I’m not sure. I don’t know what they can do more, perhaps kind of in those small details when there are seven, eight players crowding the pitch. But I don’t know what we could have done more tonight. And you know, you lose the penalty shoot at 4/3 by a small margin and that’s all we were missing tonight. What do you think is the most difficult thing to face A-Team like this who play such a low block? Well, we’ve found that that type of team, that opponent in the past. Some teams are more open, some teams play a low block. They know it’s a difficult ground to come to and they’ve tried. We’ve really pushed them as well, particularly in the second-half and that’s all you can say. What can I say today we couldn’t find the way. We were kind of on the edge of the box. We had lots of shots from outside the the area but simply we didn’t. We weren’t able to achieve it. I don’t know what else we can do, We did everything we could but in the end Madrid go through to the semi final and we don’t. Good night everyone.