Pep Guardiola poured more praise on Napoli and warned they will make Manchester City “suffer like we’ve never suffered before.”
It kicks off at the Stadio San Paolo on Wednesday at 19.45 GMT and follows on from the tight 2-1 City success at the Etihad.
“It is a pleasure to see Maurizio Sarri again. I imagine his approach will be the same, as we have a very similar way of approaching the game away from home,” said the Coach in his Press conference, which he conducted answering questions in Italian and English.
Pep Guardiola poured more praise on Napoli and warned they will make Manchester City “suffer like we’ve never suffered before.”
It kicks off at the Stadio San Paolo on Wednesday at 19.45 GMT and follows on from the tight 2-1 City success at the Etihad.
“It is a pleasure to see Maurizio Sarri again. I imagine his approach will be the same, as we have a very similar way of approaching the game away from home,” said the Coach in his Press conference, which he conducted answering questions in Italian and English.
“It is an honour for me to be in Naples for the first time in my life, as I never got a chance before as a player or a Coach. We want to win the game, we’ve got the chance to earn qualification, there are two very tough away fixtures against Napoli and Shakhtar Donetsk.
“I have a lot of respect for Napoli, for the way they play, but it’s still a game and one cannot feel fear in a game.
“We are a very young club in Europe. Manchester City is not Milan, Juventus, Inter, Barcelona, Real Madrid or Bayern Munich, we don’t have that history behind us.
“We have three or four players who have experience in the Champions League, such as Nicolas Otamendi, David Silva, Sergio Aguero, but the others are very, very young, have probably played six or seven games in the Champions League.
“It’s a test to see how we have grown and a great atmosphere to see if we can do that. I like the way we run and fight without the ball, as sometimes big teams forget that. It’s a process, we’re in November and will see what happens.
“I see a gap, we still have something to improve, and the players know that. This is the main target to get better. Tomorrow we have a big, big challenge.
“There will be moments where we have to defend, moments where we will suffer like we’ve never suffered before in our time together, and I want to see how we’ll react. That’s why it is a good challenge.”
Manchester City effectively need just a point to be sure of qualification, but Guardiola has no interest in such an attitude.
“Why play for a draw when you can play for a win? That question makes no sense. We will play to win a game, just like Napoli do or West Brom. We are athletes, we play to win and then see what happens.
“Manchester City, Napoli and Shakhtar are very similar and on the same level. With all due respect to Feyenoord and Dutch football, they are a little behind.
“I knew before facing Napoli that it would be a tough game. We won 2-1, we saw the match they played three days later against Inter and I was really impressed with the way they came back to hurt us in the second half.
“As I said, I really love watching Napoli as a spectator. At the end of the day, this sport is about the emotions we can transmit and I think we do that for fans, while Napoli produce those emotions for me as a spectator.”
Sarri is focusing his energy more on Serie A, where Napoli are top of the table with 10 wins and a draw, but Guardiola does not think there will be squad rotation.
“I expect Napoli to play their usual XI, so I expect Jorginho, Hamsik and Allan in midfield. The quality of the individuals doesn’t change the system, the approach or the way they move as a unit.
“Jorginho is marvellous, Allan is in great shape and Napoli are great because they make so many short passes of three or four metres. If your passes are 10 metres or more, that’s not good. Any team that plays that many short passes is very dangerous and plays great football.
“They have Mertens, Insigne and Callejon who cut inside like few others. I love Napoli because they force us to step up a level. If we want to get better, we have to face teams like Napoli and the more times we take on the best opponents, the more we’ll get an idea of how far we can go.”