Pep Guardiola insists a weak mentality from his Manchester City squad was not the reason for their late Champions League defeat to Real Madrid.
City were two goals up on aggregate in the 89th minute of Wednesday's second leg, before Rodrygo equalised on the night and reduced the aggregate score to 4-5. No sooner had City restarted, though, that Madrid forced extra time with Rodrygo again heading past a stranded Ederson 90 seconds later.
Asked on Friday whether the two quick goals were partly due to a mentality issue from City's players, Guardiola was insistent that the character of his team remained strong - and is only being questioned after fine margins went against them.
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"There is no time for mental [issues]. They scored 45 seconds later. There was no time to fall down," he said, referencing Jack Grealish's two huge chances before Rodrygo's first - one hacked off the line and the other saved by Thibaut Courtois.
"All the data and analysis, how do you control the emotion of the players? Tell me in the data how the players feel in that moment, how do you feel? Do you think they want to lose? They want to stop the cross, but it is deflected from one player, goes to Rodrygo, scores again. It’s football. What happened – it’s football. It happened and now we have to accept it.
"You know how many times we talk about that and guys you have to score goals and chances. Now people say it's lack of character. Lack of character? What happens if Jack Grealish scores those two goals? What is the character? In Atletico Madrid when [Angel] Correa shot and Eddy saves, now its character? When Correa scores it’s not character?
"When [Thibaut] Courtois put his feet here and it deflected for a corner and away from the goal that is not character for the team. It is the same for ex-football players, not for you. Margins like this we have to handle it and maybe we have to have more time and after kick-off we have to know, a long ball from Eddie."
Looking at the semi-final as a whole, Guardiola pointed to other periods where City arguably 'lost' the tie, and told his players to learn from their experience in Madrid.
"You play with emotions, and emotions are uncontrollable," he continued.
"What happened here we scored at 3-1 and in that moment we were hot and Madrid were down. I was there. One minute later, throw-in, 3-2, not even two or three minutes to maybe get the momentum.
"Football in this competition is momentum, the players in the Premier League, they know they have another game, another game but in the Champions League it’s a question of time. The goal happened immediately.
"Madrid deserved it because they are in the final but if you deserved to score more goals, we had taken the chances and defend better the first goal which we didn’t defend properly. That’s why I never blame things, always you can do better and you work for that. And that is why for next season if we are here together, and do it, that is what we have to learn. Maybe it will help us."
