Guardiola targets first Champions League semi-final with Man City

MANCHESTER City boss Pep Guardiola is keen on breaking a jinx as his side face Borussia Dortmund in the second leg of their UEFA Champions League quarter-final.

The former Barcelona manager is in his fifth season with the megarich English club but has never taken them beyond the quarter-finals of Europe’s elite club competition.

City go into Wednesday’s second leg in Dortmund with a 2-1 win they got with a late Phil Foden goal at the Etihad Stadium last week.

“It’s a pleasure to be again here. Next season it will be again because we have already qualified for the Champions League, ” Guardiola said during his pre-match press conference in Dortmund on Tuesday. 

“We train, fly there, have a good dinner. We are looking forward. Nothing is guaranteed. We had a good result in our first game. We will play to try and win.”

Although a draw will be enough to end Guardiola’s jinx, he insisted that he would be gunning for the win against the young German team.

“We have to try and execute our plan,” he offered. “It doesn’t matter what happens in the first leg, you have a chance in the second. Our idea is to go there do as best as possible and let them feel we are not going to defend what we got here. We want to impose our game to win the game.

“We are already the first qualified for the Champions League. So now, 11 years in a row we will be in the Champions League. No team in the Premier League has every done 11 in a row., that is fantastic. For sure, nobody will give it to us – we have to do it.”

If City scale through to the semi-finals past Dortmund, they would be up against either current champions Bayern Munich or 2020 losing finalists Paris Saint-Germain.