Pep Guardiola says he thrives during the season run-in as Manchester City fight to win the Champions League and retain the Premier League.
City welcome Bayern Munich to the Etihad Stadium on Tuesday for the first leg of their quarter-final tie as two teams unbeaten in Europe this season face off.
For Guardiola is it a meeting with one of his former teams and also the man who beat him and City in the Champions League final two years ago, with Thomas Tuchel being appointed after Julian Nagelsmann's surprise sacking last month.
But Guardiola is only thinking of the end goal and getting his players over the line both domestically and on the continent.
"Being again in the quarter-finals in Europe is a moment to enjoy,” he told reporters. “In September, October, November I enjoy less. When we arrive in the last stages, fighting for the title, I’m the happiest man in the world. I love to be here.
“What’s going to happen? I don't know. [If we’re] going to win, everything is going to be perfect. If we lose, we will be a failure. Nothing is going to change. The day after, [there will be a] sunrise. We will try it again in the future.
“This is the mindset we will need to do. We have done it in the past, that's why I'm incredibly happy with the players I have. The club we are. Everyone is pushing to be better and get better and better. That’s why we are here.”
City are now favourites to win the Premier League after Arsenal dropped points at Liverpool. They hold a game in hand over the Gunners and will welcome them to Manchester City later this month.
The title race will likely go down to the final week and Guardiola is no stranger to final-day drama, having finally held off Liverpool in the last match last season.
He continued: “Yeah, we know that feeling, I said many times. We lose a game, we lose the Premier League. Playing with that on top of us and in September and October you cannot have that feeling.
“You say: ‘okay, we can drop points or whatever’, and after you find seasons like Liverpool were unstoppable and now like Arsenal are unstoppable. They make a lot of points.
“Now, I have the feeling and that everyone knows that if we lose or drop today points here, Leicester or, of course, Arsenal, we have no chance. Still, we are there. [There are] Many games to play. What’s important is we are still alive in three competitions.
“I like it, you go to war thinking ‘if we beat Leicester we are still alive’. ‘If we win against Arsenal we are still alive.’ Going there thinking: ‘nothing to do’, it gets worse.”
