Interestingly, Pep Guardiola substituted star players Erling Haaland and Kevin De Bruyne early against Real Madrid. As a result, Manchester City could not rely on its two best penalty takers during the lost penalty shootout.
Haaland was substituted at the start of the first overtime, and De Bruyne was taken off deep into the second overtime. “But they asked to be substituted,” Pep Guardiola explained in the press conference after the match.
“Just like Manuel (Akanji, who was also replaced), they couldn’t continue,” he referred to problems with his two star players.
“They played great and I’m not a big fan of making many substitutions, but Kevin, Erling, and Manu all asked me to be substituted.”
It was painful because Matteo Kovacic, who came on for De Bruyne, then missed his penalty. Earlier, Bernardo Silva had also kicked the ball straight into the arms of Real’s goalkeeper Lunin, but Guardiola did not want to blame anyone.
“Bernardo is a reliable player,” he said. “He wanted to take that penalty and decided to kick it that way. It is what it is.”
Can focus on the Premier League
Now that City is out of the Champions League, Guardiola and his team can focus on other aspects of the season. Among other things, they can put all their efforts into winning the Premier League, where they are in a close race with Liverpool and Arsenal.
Additionally, they have an important match against Chelsea on Saturday evening in the FA Cup. This means, of course, that they still have the opportunity to go all the way in the English cup competition.
However, this requires them to manage a win over Mauricio Pochettino and his men on Saturday evening.
