Pep Guardiola could not hide his frustration with Manchester City’s fixture schedule in February after being handed a daunting two-legged Champions League playoff tie with Real Madrid.
City’s failure to qualify automatically for the tournament’s last 16 means they have to face the current holders in order to reach that stage. City will host the first leg on 11 February before travelling to the Bernabéu on 19 February.
It is the fourth successive season that Guardiola’s side have drawn the 15-time Champions League winners. City, who are preparing to face Arsenal in the Premier League on Sunday, also play Newcastle, Liverpool, Tottenham and Leyton Orient in the FA Cup to make it seven games in 24 days.
“The schedule is what it is,” said Guardiola. “In the Premier League everyone has to play everyone but what normally happens is we have tougher schedules for the [Premier League] teams in Europe. It’s tough playing against Real Madrid, the problem is in the middle playing Newcastle.” He sarcastically added: “They are always so kind with the calendar, for many years it always happened that way.”
Guardiola has previously argued English teams that compete in Europe should be afforded extra days’ rest by the domestic fixture schedulers. Now in his ninth season at City, he wearily accepts that is unlikely to happen.
“Are you asking me that question? Come on, don’t make me say something impolite,” Guardiola said in response to a further question about the fixture list. “I’m not complaining because we’ve had incredible success with this calendar. We accept it. We won the treble and the quadruple doing it like this. We survive and if we don’t survive it’s because the opponents are better.
“When I was training at Barcelona I followed the Premier League – because it’s the most attractive league in the world – and Sir Alex Ferguson, José Mourinho, Arsène Wenger made the same complaints. It’s been this way for nine years. Do you think it’s going to change? The broadcasters decide, they don’t ask me.
“They play on Friday before the Champions League in Portugal and France, to have one more day [rest]. It’s not a problem, it’s fine. No surprises when we see the calendar. The schedule we have in February we’ve had in previous seasons many times.”
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Guardiola accepted that the extra games come as a result of City’s own shortcomings, having won only three of their eight Champions League games to finish 22nd in the 36-team group phase. They beat Club Brugge 3-1 on the final match-day to snatch a playoff spot.
“We are happy because at 55, 60 minutes [against Brugge] we were out of the Champions League,” he added. “It could be better, we could be in the first eight but we were not good enough, we don’t deserve it. The draw could be nicer, yes. Real Madrid is extremely difficult and we’re going to play with a two or three-day recovery. My concern is always to give us more time between seasons but even that doesn’t happen. It’s OK. We have dealt with it.”
Source: theguardian.com
