Pep Guardiola says the best way to cope with the pressure of winning the Champions League at Manchester City is to expect failure.
With every year that City don't win the Champions League, the pressure on them grows to end that record, and they resume this season's campaign at RB Leipzig on Wednesday in their last-16 first leg. Guardiola and some of his City players have made no secret of their desire to win the tournament this season, and the expectation they have among the squad to do so, but the manager offered a different mentality on Tuesday.
Explaining how he deals with his Champions League record at City, Guardiola said he would retire happy if his career ended now, and suggested a change in mindset has helped him feel calmer when it comes to chasing European glory.
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"I would say if my career finished tomorrow if I cannot be manager, I would be more than blessed with what I've done at Barcelona, Bayern Munich and here," he said.
"I could never expect to have the career I had in the short time. Not just the success we had together over this period of 13, 14 years, for the fact the way we played. I couldn't ask for more. We want to do our best, what's going to happen is going to happen. In the end destiny is already written. We'll do our best, we have been close.
"I had the feeling what we have done for many years, whatever happens is going to fail. Whatever I do personally in the future I'm going to fail. Nothing will be enough. That's why I enjoy it, have fun."
Pressed on how long he has learned to adjust to the pressure, Guardiola replied: "A few years. Mainly at City. Put in perspective that everything is a disaster if you don't win some prizes. If everyone puts pressure on themselves... I don't want to put pressure on myself.
"I'm blessed to be here. I never thought when I arrived we have to win everything. Or I have to win three, four Champions Leagues. Unless you are [Real] Madrid, the rest cannot do it. Adjust to try to do what we have done. The last two seasons we have been really close, really good games. And try to do it again."
Guardiola also backed his squad to bounce back from their disappointing draw at Nottingham Forest, when they dominated and created countless chances, but were wasteful and were caught on the break late on.
He said: "The team is there, I have the feeling, we won in London against Arsenal maybe we weren't who we are but we compete really really well. Without that it's impossible to achieve that result. The way we played that game we had something we normally, we had in the past like the resilience.
"The last game against Nottingham was highest standards, I loved the way we play after we don't win because it's football. Sometimes happens, I can not have an answer on what happened for this type of situation. But today we trained and yeah the team is there. That doesn't mean we're going to win or get results. But I have a good feeling. Honestly."
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