This year’s Club World Cup had its last participant defined on Saturday, when the Brazilian team Fluminense won the Copa Conmebol Libertadores and guaranteed a place in the competition.
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With that, on monday (6), Pep Guardiola was asked about the World Cup and Manchester City’s future participation.
Guardiola, who has already won the title three times, twice with Barcelona and once with Bayern, said he did not watch the Libertadores final.
But he mentioned that the World Cup presents difficulties even before the long-awaited possible duel between the Libertadores champion and the Champions League winner.
“We’ve never won it before, of course. It’s a trophy we’ve never competed for, as to be there, you need to win the Champions League and we’ve just won it for the first time. My feeling is that the players will be ready, but it’s two games. I’ve already played in the World Cup three times, and the first game is very delicate…”
“People only talk about the final, final, final, and I already had a hard time, especially in the first two with Barcelona, it wasn’t easy”, said Guardiola.
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Manchester City enters the tournament directly in the semi-finals, and will face León, from Mexico, or Urawa Reds, from Japan as rivals in their debut.
The tournament will be held between the 12th and 22nd of December, at a busy time of the season European championship, but Guardiola says he already sees athletes mentioning the World Cup in the dressing room.
“We’re going there prepared, I know that, because it’s a dream for us. The club doesn’t have that trophy, and to compete in the World Cup, you need to win the Libertadores, the Asian Champions League, the Champions League”.
“I have the feeling that that the players are already talking about this in the dressing room, I know that they will be prepared to add something new to their successful careers, something that they don’t have”, commented Pep.