Pep: Bayern have time

Pep Guardiola consoled himself with the second leg after Bayern Munich lost the first leg of the Champions League semi-final to Atletico Madrid.

Saul Niguez scored the game’s only goal, Guardiola telling a flash post-match interview that it came largely as a result of his side’s ‘low tone,’ but adding at a Press conference that he was generally happy with Bayern.

“The first few minutes were worse than the last few. I’m happy with the performance. In the last 25 minutes of the first half and the entire second, we played very well. I’m not happy about the goal we conceded. It was a fantastic goal by Saul but we still have 90 minutes to recover,” he said, AS reports, before rejecting comparisons to Bayern’s semi against Real Madrid in 2014.

“I don’t know that we learned a lesson. At Santiago Bernabeu we created fewer chances. Madrid shut themselves up well, too. We managed the counter-attacks badly. We’ll have to do better against [Antoine] Griezmann and [Fernando] Torres. I’d settle for creating the same chances as here. We have time. I want to watch the game calmly and see what to do.

“We didn’t score? We have to think about the opponent we were playing against. We lacked a goal, they had Saul. It’s not an excuse. I’m not worried about not having scored. We played to score. We didn’t score, but we played to. They defend very well.

“Jan Oblak has made great saves, Atletico didn’t create chances and we did. We’ll see where we have to improve for the home game.

“Saul’s goal like Lionel Messi? I think a lot of Saul but I don’t know that it’s good to compare him to Messi. Spanish football has another great talent in Saul.”

Tags Bayern Munich Pep Guardiola
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