Guardiola: Roma feared another thrashing

The Spaniard was not impressed by the Serie A outfit’s defensive tactics, while Mario Gotze feels the German champions are perfectly in tune with their coach’s tactics

Pep Guardiola believes Roma were afraid to suffer another heavy defeat against Bayern Munich and therefore fielded “six defenders” in Wednesday’s Champions League.

The Serie A outfit were beaten 7-1 at home two weeks ago and employed a defensive strategy at the Allianz Arena in an attempt to prevent a repeat of that result.

Nevertheless, they were once more beaten as Franck Ribery and Mario Gotze helped Bayern to a 2-0 win and a spot in the knockout stages.

“The 7-1 was more of a coincidence, something like this happens once in a lifetime,” Guardiola said at the post-match press conference.

“Roma didn’t want to suffer again so they played very defensive, with six defenders.

“Nevertheless we were dominant, especially in the second half.”

Gotze, meanwhile, was very happy with his side’s performance and stressed that Bayern are getting to understand Guardiola’s philosophy more and more.

“It’s fun to play in this team. We won 2-0 and are very happy with this.

“We knew that it would take some time to understand our coach but now we know how to fulfil his wishes.”

Bayern secured top spot in Group E following Wednesday’s results with 12 points from four games, holding an eight-point lead over Roma and CSKA Moscow.

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Your email address will not be published.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.