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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Sport
David McDonnell

Pep Guardiola disagrees with Rodri and sends "huge mistake" warning to Man City stars

Pep Guardiola has warned his Manchester City players not to be consumed by revenge when they face Real Madrid in Tuesday night's Champions League semi-final.

Real broke City's hearts at the same stage last season, scoring twice in the final minutes to force extra-time, eventually beating Guardiola's side on their way to lifting the trophy.

City midfielder Rodri talked of a feeling of “revenge” for what happened last season, but Guardiola told his players they will come unstuck if that is their motivation in the first leg at the Bernabeu, scene of their agonising exit.

“That would be a huge mistake,” said Guardiola. “We're not here for revenge. What happened, happened. Always in football, what happens is because you deserve it. We did everything to reach the final, more than everything, but sometimes it’s not enough.

“The lesson we can learn from what happened is to get a good result, perform well and have the opportunity to reach the final when we play the second leg in Manchester.”

Rodri admitted he and City team-mates are desperate to avenge last year's agonising defeat to the 14-time winners and claimed they learned some key lessons from the crushing experience.

“The thing with football is it gives you the chance for revenge,” said Rodri. “We have the philosophy that you can learn from past experiences.

Pep Guardiola is preparing his Man City squad for their clash with Real Madrid (PETER POWELL/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)

“We played two games, but we didn’t go through. But we're to fight again with motivation and the feeling we’ve done things well and are arriving here in our best moment. We can learn about what we can improve and what we did bad in that moment.

“We played brilliantly for 180 minutes, but sometimes you can lose a leg in five minutes. In the last minutes of that leg, we didn’t handle it the right way - you have to kill the tie when you can. It’s something we learned.

“We changed a lot of things, the way we go now it’s another year another goal, we are here to fight with the same style.”

He added: "We arrived here last season with encouragement to get to the final. The way we played was really good in both games, but it was not enough. We are not here for revenge, it is just another opportunity."

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