Ancelloti praises Guardiola ahead of UCL clash

As Manchester City prepares to travel to Spain to face Real Madrid in the first leg of their UEFA Champions League quarterfinal clash at Santiago Bernabeu on Tuesday, Real Madrid manager Carlo Ancelloti is singing praises of Manchester City manager.

The Los Blancos boss spoke in a pre-match conference on Tuesday, highlighting the quality of a man he has faced a couple of times in his career, both as Real Madrid coach and in his previous jobs. Most recently, Real Madrid and Manchester City faced each other in the last two UEFA Champions League seasons; the previous season’s clash ended with the defending champions Manchester City defeating Real Madrid in the semi-final to secure a final spot.

The win was revenge for the miraculous loss to the Spanish side in the 2021/2022 season, in which Real Madrid emerged last-minute winners and eventual winners.

Ancelloti reminisced on last season’s fixture while appreciating Guardiola’s knowledge of the game.

“Guardiola is a great coach; I don’t care much about what they think of me. I care what my club thinks. But Guardiola is a great coach, and there’s no doubt about that. We didn’t play with courage and personality, which are fundamental aspects of this kind of game. We lacked that in the second leg. They put a lot of pressure on us up front and we didn’t find alternative solutions. We want to avoid these things in this tie. I’m confident we’re going to give our best. We have the quality to compete. We expect to be superior in some aspects, and they will be superior in others.” Ancelloti said.

Meanwhile, Pep Guardiola believes that beating the 14-time UEFA Champions League winners back-to-back is an impossible task, and playing them at the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium will be a difficult thing to do.

Daniel Ademiju Idowu