Guardiola: "I don't blame my players"

Posted Thursday, May 07, 2015 by Marca.com

Guardiola:

Despite a heavy 3-0 first leg defeat in the Champions League semi-finals, Pep Guardiola said he "does not blame" his players who, in his opinion, have had "a tough time of it" over the past three months.

The Bayern Munich boss regretted his team had not been sharper in attack during some stages of the game, but he defended his tactics at the Camp Nou, where his team tried to "defend and attack with the ball at their feet".

"The team have had a tough time of it and I'm very grateful to my players. I'll never forget these past three months. It's hard to accept this result against such an in-form team", he said.

The game was decided in the last quarter of an hour, when Leo Messi popped up and scored two goals before setting up Neymar for a third. "The best way to stop these types of players if to not allow them to get involved and that's what we tried to do; but we weren't well positioned for their first two goals and I think we should have done better for their third", he said. However, he defended his tactics: "We wanted to make them chase the ball, but we didn't dominate the game in the first half; our midfielders didn't link up very well. We controlled the game better after the break, but lost that control in the last fifteen minutes".

Guardiola underlined that Bayern "always" try to score and that his only criticism of their performance was how they lost possession towards the end of the game. "We lost our grip on the game when they went ahead and it was a shame we conceded that third goal, because at 2-0 down we still had a chance for the return leg, but 3-0 is a tough task", he concluded.