Guardiola: This is Bayern's style of play, not mine

After watching the Bavarians make an impressive start to the defence of their European crown, the Catalan coach insisted that he deserved no credit for the performance

Pep Guardiola was quick to deflect all of the praise onto his players after Bayern Munich’s 3-0 win over CSKA Moscow in their Champions League clash on Tuesday.

Goals from David Alaba, Mario Mandzukic and Arjen Robben did the damage at the Allianz Arena, and their Catalan trainer felt that it was the team, and not the coach, that deserved the credit for an impressive performance.

“The style we play is Bayern’s style, not mine. I’m here to support my new players and I’m very proud of them today,” Guardiola told reporters after the one-sided Group D encounter.

Bayern are aiming to be the first team in Champions League history to win the competition in two consecutive seasons, but Guardiola stressed that retaining the title is an onerous task right from the off.

“The first game after winning the Champions League is never easy. Everyone always thinks it’s easy, but it’s not,” he insisted.

“But I’m very satisfied with the performance, especially our first-half display, which was very pleasing.”

Bayern’s performances this season have come in for criticism from some quarters, as club director Matthias Sammer hit out at the players’ lack of effort, though his comments were not taken to heart by Guardiola and president Uli Hoeness.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.