Pep Guardiola was impressed with Manchester City’s “incredible personality” in the second half as they hit back to draw 3-3 at Real Madrid in the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final.
City went ahead inside two minutes courtesy of Bernardo Silva’s brilliant free-kick only for a Ruben Dias own goal and a Rodrygo effort to put Madrid 2-1 up at the break.
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Phil Foden and Josko Gvardiol scored from outside the area to restore City’s advantage only for Federico Valverde to restore parity for Carlo Ancelotti’s men with a crisply struck volley.
Guardiola told TNT Sports: “We started really well but this is so difficult to come here, they defend really well and the pace they have up front is really amazing.
“We were a bit anxious with the ball in the first half we lost a lot of balls and when that happens this team are so difficult to play against. The second half we showed incredible personality in the way we played.
“To come back from two or three would be difficult in Manchester. We played with composure and scored two fantastic goals. Three-three we take it and we have to win the next game to get to the semi-final.”
On what he said to his players at half-time, former Barcelona boss Guardiola added: “Be more calm, move less, be safer with the ball and attack outside the areas. Be exactly what we talked about.
“I said it’s 45 minutes then 90 minutes so a lot of minutes left to play. Sometimes you want to be crazy but they did really well.”
REAL MADRID ARE LEVEL 𝗔𝗚𝗔𝗜𝗡!
The technique from Federico Valverde 🤌#UCL pic.twitter.com/1Zr61G8GxZ
— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) April 9, 2024
City hammered Madrid 4-0 at the Etihad in the semi-finals of last year’s competition and Guardiola called on the club’s fans to get behind them next week to try to create a repeat result.
He added: “Next week we have our people, our people are there and we need all of them, the energy to beat the kings of this competition. We will go for it in Manchester with our people.”
