MANCHESTER (ENGLAND) (ITALPRESS) – “It’s an honour for me. This means that in recent seasons we have done a great job, both in the Champions League and in the league. For all of us it is a new competition and I am really looking forward to playing it”. Interviewed by Fifa.com, Pep Guardiola can’t wait to meet the new Club World Cup.
Manchester City is in the same group as Juventus, Al Ain and Wydad Casablanca “and even in the national championships you always have to deal with different coaches, cultures, styles of play and ways of playing. Surely at the Club World Cup you can meet teams from Oceania, Asia, South America… Different ways of understanding football and different players. It will be great”.
Coming off a disappointing season, City is aiming for the big target to redeem itself. “It would be great to win it, there’s no point in denying it. But there will be 31 other teams with the same objective. Usually when I take part in a competition, for example the Premier League, I never start thinking ‘We will win. I have to win’. You take it one step at a time”. Speaking instead of his approach, the 54-year-old Catalan coach admits: “the influence of my previous coaches has helped me to open my mind, especially my mentor Johan Cruyff”.
“He opened my mind and helped me imagine the way I would play”, Guardiola continued. “I’m pretty sure that without Johan Cruyff’s influence on my career as a footballer, it would have been difficult to become the coach I am today.” Meanwhile, City will be in the States without Mateo Kovacic: the 31-year-old Croatian midfielder has undergone surgery on his Achilles tendon. The English club has not commented on his recovery times but confirms that they will have to do without him at the Club World Cup.
Meanwhile, on the transfer market, to solve the left-back problem once and for all, the Citizens have reportedly set their sights on Rayan Ait-Nouri, a 23-year-old Algerian from Wolverhampton: the goal is to find an agreement before leaving for the USA and have him available immediately.
According to the English press, there have also been initial contacts with Lyon for the 21-year-old Rayan Cherki, 12 goals in 44 games last season, who has a valuation of over 40 million. He too, like the Milan player Reijnders and the aforementioned Ait-Nouri, could join City in time to play in the Club World Cup.
– Photo IPA Agency –
(ITALPRESS)
