Future is bright for Man City despite Champions League exit – Guardiola

Pep Guardiola maintains that Manchester City still has a promising future, even as their challenging season continued with a heavy UEFA Champions League defeat to Real Madrid.

City were beaten 2–1 at the Etihad Stadium on Tuesday, completing a 5–1 aggregate loss. Bernardo Silva saw red in the first half for a deliberate handball, while Vinícius Júnior struck twice to seal the result for Los Blancos.

Since lifting the trophy in the 2022–23 season, City have advanced beyond the round of 16 only once in the following three campaigns, reaching the quarter-finals in 2023–24. Domestically, they sit nine points behind in the Premier League, though they are set to face Arsenal in the EFL Cup final on Sunday.

Guardiola’s own future has come under scrutiny, with reports indicating he could make a decision about his stay in the coming weeks. Even so, he remains optimistic about what lies ahead for the club.

Speaking to Amazon Prime, he said: “It’s difficult once you are 4-0 down and playing 10 men against 11. But we did everything.

“We have an extraordinary team and an extraordinary group of players. The future is bright.

“It’s a little bit of a learning. But it should have been 11 against 11. But we never know. Maybe we lose 6-0 but it’s a fact.

“The feeling is that give me the chance to play 11 against 11.”

Guardiola has now been beaten in four of his last five Champions League encounters with Madrid (W1), having previously lost just three of his first 12 meetings with them in the competition (W5 D4).

Attention now shifts to the showdown with Arsenal, where a trophy is at stake.

Looking ahead, Guardiola said: “On Monday [after the EFL Cup final] hopefully we will wake up and it is a sunny day.

“It is not crucial, it is a football game, we are going to try to win with a good performance.

“We will challenge against the best team in England so far, the best team in Europe because look at their results in the group phase, they were first and have lost three or four games all season.

“We will challenge them and we have to see how we are competing against them.”