Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola controversially compared his lack of European success with Jose Mourinho’s side. ‘Roma also spent a lot of money, but they’re not in the Champions League.’
The Giallorossi earned their place in the Europa Conference League Final against Feyenoord, which will be in Tirana on May 25, thanks to a 2-1 aggregate victory over Leicester City.
After Manchester City fumbled a lead in stoppages to crash out of the Champions League semi-final against Carlo Ancelotti’s Real Madrid, Guardiola was criticised for the relative lack of success on the continental stage.
He responded during a press conference by making a rather odd comparison.
“For me this is not a matter of money, and the fans don’t realise it,” said the former Barcelona boss.
“Roma have also spent a lot of money, but they’re not in the Champions League.”
It’s not entirely clear where he got the idea that Roma were big spenders, considering Tammy Abraham is the most expensive signing at €40m from Chelsea, but that figure is spread out over several seasons to make it more affordable.
Abraham is the second most expensive player in the history of Roma, after Patrik Schick for €42m in 2018.
This season, the Giallorossi also purchased Marash Kumbulla from Verona for €26.5m, Eldor Shomurodov from Genoa for €18m, Matias Vina from Palmeiras for €13.6m and Rui Patricio for €11.8m from Wolves.
In comparison, Manchester City spent €117.5m for Jack Grealish this summer, a player who was not deemed suitable to even start any of the Champions League knockout round games, remaining on the bench throughout three of them.
Non capisco perché nominare la Roma e non il PSG 😏 #Mourinho #Guardiola pic.twitter.com/2KmR4pCYJB
— JAX (@IlJoker17) May 7, 2022
Maybe this is Pep’s way of alerting the Roma owners that he wants to coach Roma and thinks he can bring their current roster to the CL semi-finals.
bro your squad is wovrth atleast double ours
Hahaha, good to know that Mourinho still rankles in the mind of Pep. Mou is in a European final, must be getting to Pep.
How else do you explain him comparing City spending to Roma spending. They are in different universes when it comes to spending.
He was always obsessed with Jose. Any coach could win with his squad at Barca and he failed to do so we Bayarn with a greatvsquad and now again with City. He seems a nice guy though, but will never be great until he chooses a difficult project.
Pep is what you call in cricket a ‘flat track bully’. That is to say, when the going is easy, his teams will absolutely dismantle you. When the gap (between the teams) is sufficient, he has the patterns of play to have his team build up the play effortlessly, keep the ball from you, and if you manage to win it, they will foul you immediately (while making it look like a legitimate attempt to win the ball, of course).
He stocks his teams with these types, Bernardo Silva, De Bruyne, Gundogan, Cancelo, Foden, Mahrez. Brilliant technical players who are maybe a touch soft.
He tries to play without a center forward, and all the defenders and GK must be good with the ball at their feet as well. But what happens against another good attacking side? Well, Real Madrid showed us.
City can be got at. They concede goals. Especially once the game became direct, the first time City failed to press all over the field (and foul) against Madrid, Madrid scored. And they scored the 2nd, for the same reason. Pep’s teams have no instruction on how to close out games, how to play PRAGMATIC, DEFENSIVE or DIRECT football.
As a result, Mourinho is in a European final, and Pep isn’t. But his teams win leagues, for the same reasons discussed above.
Bald fraud. Mourinho will go down as a legendary manager, guardiola as one who always had the most expensive squads and still failed
@ luigi – in fairness to Capello, he was the first to see thru the tiki taka cr@p – he said Pep has made us sleep for 10 years…..
It would’ve made more sense to compare city to juve w all the failures both sides have in Europe
But no, this man has me laughing because he tried to compare ROMA to Man city???
Roma a club that has to consistently perform economically and on the field without much room for error vs a blood oil money club that can stack the bench with top talent, and lose out each year like it’s their job
Lmfaoooo
Pep use please use your plan B. Fancy football ⚽ with Champion 🏆 League isn’t fancy! Jose won Champion with teams that won’t be able to win the championship in the next 10 years. But Barcelona shall win cause they can spend like Manchester city 🏙️. You are now equal to Jose interms of reaching the semi finals. Never compare Paris with Harare.
Jose Mourinho lives rent free in Pep’s head. Give Mourinho Pep’s Barca, Bayern Munich and Man.City and he would’ve won 2 CL Trophies each for each team by now. He knew Jose Mourinho can achieve his feat in football but it’ll be difficult for him to achieve Jose Mourinho’s feat. He understands he’s no match for Mourinho. It’s a fact.
Tbh Pep is probably not as good as prime mou, but mou has really devolved the last 4-5 years. He used to redirect the pressure from the players to himself and in return they gave all for him. He was THE expert in the mental aspect of the game, but not anymore. Klopp is similar in that regard, though his tactics on the pitch are very different.
😂😂 i really can’t wait to hear jose’s reaction to this statement…how on earth can Pep compare the spending of Roma to City…mannn ur bench is by far more expensive than Roma’s stating 11 the only difference is Roma has a manager who doesn’t need billions to win trophies
I think that knockout from RMA made him lose his mind, he doesn’t know what he’s saying, pity.
I swear this dude it’s just an average person playing the most expensive football manager
This Pep guy is really funny, just come to italy and try coach roma, then we’ll see if he still can make a humor like that
Money spend in grealish can buy half of the roma team
I don’t know what drugs Pep is taking, but for sure I would like some of that lol
Jose is already a LEGEND coz every club he go to he always WIN at least 1 trophy ex: Man Utd (Europa Cub)…he always build a team whereas YOU (Pep) ALWAYS go to big teams with big name players n yet U FAIL in Bayern, Man city, maybe u should go to coach real Madrid like u coach Barca coz it’s a ready made team n u step in to claim or trying to claim success, try go to coach Watford or Norwich for example n if u build them up n WIN CL…then only u deserve to call a legend…coz u r a million miles too far from mourinho by comparison
Mourinho made a bad mistake taking up the coaching job at Manchester United and Tottenham. These are inflexible clubs with an unsupportive hierarchy. His strength. lies in making 2nd-rate teams into winners, as he did in Porto and in some ways Inter. All Mou needs is time and a supportive owner and he will do miracles. It seems like he is getting lots of support from Roma.