Manchester City midfielder Ilkay Gundogan has admitted he has no plans to watch the upcoming Champions League final between Liverpool and Real Madrid and gets 'very angry' each time he thinks about the showpiece fixture in Paris.
Pep Guardiola's side were moments away from setting up an all-English final with the Reds only to implode in the dying embers of their semi-final second leg with Real Madrid at the Santiago Bernabeu. A Rodrygo injury-time saw City squander their two-goal advantage in disastrous fashion before Karim Benzema's penalty in extra-time completed an unthinkable turnaround.
This heartbreaking exit ensured the Etihad outfit's wait for success in Europe's elite competition will go on for at least another year. Liverpool, meanwhile, will look to clinch a seventh European Cup when taking on Madrid on May 28. But Gundogan has made clear he will make alternative plans for the fixture as he looks to process the damaging defeat suffered in the Spanish capital.
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"If I think about the final in Paris then I get very angry,'" he told the Daily Mail. "Frustrated, disappointed. I'm definitely not going to watch it. I will definitely try to do something else that day. Nothing is going to really help, the only thing that will help is time. It's becoming a little bit easier, even though you know - yet again - you've missed a big chance to lift a possible trophy.
"Maybe there's not much we can tell ourselves that we did wrong but at the end of the day, we conceded two goals in two minutes. We were not there when it was necessary and we were not focused enough. It was not enough. That is the blame we give ourselves."
City could still beat Liverpool to the Premier League title, however, as they look to reclaim their three-point lead at the top of the table this evening with victory at Wolves. As the two teams battle it out for glory once again, Gundogan has admitted there is a mutual respect that exists between the sides that translates into a more peaceful rivalry to that of the one between Arsenal and Manchester United in the early 2000s.
"Those kind of rivalries don't really exist anymore in modern football. For some people who are more old school you know, that might be bad. The game is not like, I don't know, 20-30 years ago, with people on the pitch killing each other and intentionally trying to injure," the German admitted.
"That's not how we want the game to be. I want fairness. I want respect. Just because there's a rivalry we don't need to kill each other on or off the pitch."
