MANCHESTER City manager Pep Guardiola has warned Real Madrid his side are coming for their record after steering the English club to UEFA Champions League success.
Rodri struck last night in Istanbul, Turkey to give City a 1-0 win over Inter Milan in the Champions League final as they became the second English club after Manchester United to win the Premier League, FA Cup and UCL treble in the same season.
It is City’s first Champions League title but Guardiola already has his sights set on the record 14 held by Real Madrid.
“They are just 13 Champions Leagues away, so be careful Real Madrid because if you sleep we will catch you,” Guardiola joked during his post-match press conference last night.
The 52-year-old Spaniard is the first manager to lead two clubs to the treble in the history of European football having steered Barcelona to LaLiga, Copa del Rey and Champions League success in 2009.
He insisted that Manchester City could not afford not to build on the Champions League win after waiting so long to achieve it.
“There are teams who win the Champions League then disappear, we have to avoid that. Next year we have to work harder,” he noted.
“Knowing me, that is not going to happen, but I have to admit it is a big relief because now finally they can’t ask me whether I have to win the Champions League or not.
“It looks like this competition this year, this final, was written in the stars. I am so happy but at the end they could have scored and we could have lost and I would be the same person, we would be the same club.”
Inter Milan indeed could have equalised and taken the game to extra-time but for Federico Dimarco’s looping header hitting the crossbar, a Romelu Lukaku miss from three yards out and a big Ederson save with virtually the last touch of the ball in the match.
Guardiola commended Inter Milan for their performance in a tense, disjointed final that was on the knife edge until the end.
“Congratulations to Inter, what a great team,” Guardiola told Sport Mediaset.
“I say that as the winner, I would’ve said if I had lost too. They absolutely deserved to be here and we knew it would be a very tough match. This competition, it’s like a coin toss, that’s how tight it is. We could easily have been held 1-1 and gone to extra time.
“It felt like this season it was in the stars, we had to win the Champions League for the first time in this club’s history.”
Guardiola was full of praise for Inter and their way of playing out from the back with Cameroon goalkeeper Andre Onana, who was as competent with his feet as he was with his hands.
“This is exactly how I expected Inter. When you have a goalkeeper like Onana who can read perfectly where everyone is to pass to, with Calhanoglu and Barella, then the strikers hold it up and move the ball around,” he explained.
“It is very, very difficult. It would be a tiny bit easier without this goalkeeper, but still very tough. They are physically strong too.
“The Italian teams reached three European finals this season and that is definitely not a fluke.”
Guardiola then revealed that he got a message from the legendary Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson the morning before the final that ‘touched me a lot’.
