Manchester City and FC Barcelona legend Pep Guardiola has praised the work done by the Catalans’ new head coach Hansi Flick.
The two clubs met in Orlando on Tuesday night and Barca won the penalty shootout after a 2-2 draw in time.
“I liked the team,” the La Masia product, widely regarded as Barca’s best coach, said of the Blaugrana in a post-match press conference.
“The seasons are long and the preseasons are very special. The festival is something else, but they did many things well,” Guardiola added.
The three-time Champions League winner confessed that his men “suffered a lot when they had the ball” and stressed that the Barça players behaved admirably the short time they had to be informed of the concepts of former Bayern Munich coach Flick, while “the positional play of his team is extraordinary”.
Guardiola pointed out that in the three-time 2019/2020 champions “the wingers play as wingers, the midfielders go up and the full-backs attack the space”.
Guardiola, who promoted Sergio Busquets to the first team in 2008, also had many positive things to say about a possible successor to the center like Marc Bernal, who “I found extraordinary” for the way he “controls” the game and pieces.
“But everyone played incredibly, they do things very well, they know when they have to run, when they have to press, when they have to anticipate. I wish them all the best,” concluded Guardiola.
In his own post-match press conference, Flick said he and his team need to build something similar to what Guardiola achieved at the Etihad.
“We were smart against a wonderful team. We defended and attacked together as a team, and that’s what we want. We fight for each other,” Flick said.
“Maybe in the first half we were too deep, our concept is to be a little more forward, [and] we want more possession, but we played against Manchester City. . . Pep Guardiola has been there for 8 years and we want to do the same as them in terms of philosophy, a little different but with this concept,” added the German.
A community. Many voices. Create a free account to share your thoughts.
Our network aims to connect others through open and thoughtful conversations. We need our readers to share their perspectives and exchange ideas and facts in one space.
To do so, please comply with the posting regulations in our site’s terms of use. We summarize some of those key regulations below. In short, civilians.
Your message will be rejected if we notice that it appears to contain:
User accounts will be blocked if we become aware that users are participating in:
So, how can you be a user?
Thank you for reading our Community Standards. Read the full list of posting regulations discovered in our site’s Terms of Use.