Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City has been beaten by Thomas Tuchel twice since his arrival in England, once in the FA Cup semi-final, once in the league but both boasted the same outcome – a Chelsea win.
Their semi-final date at Wembley ended Man City quadruple hopes as Hakim Ziyech’s strike was enough to eliminate City, before the winger was a thorn in Guardiola’s side once again in the league, notching the equaliser before Alonso’s winner.
The duo will meet for a third time this Saturday in the biggest game in club football, but Guardiola is confident their previous matches will not be in his players minds come the big game.
Speaking to Rio Ferdinand for the former United player’s YouTube channel, the City boss was asked whether the recent defeats will hand Chelsea any kind of advantage, to which Guardiola responded: “Absolutely nothing – zero.”
He continued, “I know how we prepare for this final and the reason why, we came just two days after qualifying through the Dortmund game and after the semi-finals, you know in that moment – well deserved, congratulations to Chelsea, but it’s a new game, we’ll face them Saturday and see what happens.”
The former Barcelona coach even posed the hypothetical situation of if the roles were reversed, saying: “Even if we won these two games, my position would be the same right now because I know what the Champions League is, it’s one game, the season is over and everyone is sitting on the beach on their holidays thinking about next season except one game.
“The last nine years, I’ve seen them (the Champions League final) on TV, when I was on holiday so it’s just preparing for a game, one final, it’s completely different.”
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Guardiola did go on to praise the huge impact Tuchel has had on Chelsea. He said: “I think it is massive (his impact), I sae the first game against Wolves, it was a draw but I saw some routines, some fundamentals, some processes that I remember when I faced him when he was in Mainz a little bit less but especially Borussia Dortmund when he arrived there.”
Saturday’s final presents Man City with the opportunity of lifting the Champions League for the first time, but Guardiola claims there is no pressure on him from the club to do so.
“Absolutely (the pressure was only from the outside), never the Chairman, never the CEO, the pressure I felt when I got here was simply to play the team the way I did before I took over. You took over to play in a certain way, you have to do it in this way.”
