{"id":262810,"date":"2026-01-29T01:28:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T01:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/262810\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T01:28:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T01:28:08","slug":"guardiola-admits-man-city-panic-over-mourinhos-benfica-strategy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/262810\/","title":{"rendered":"Guardiola admits Man City panic over Mourinho’s Benfica strategy"},"content":{"rendered":"

MANCHESTER, England — Pep Guardiola has revealed the Manchester City<\/a> squad watched the final minutes of Benfica<\/a>‘s dramatic win over Real Madrid<\/a> in the dressing room and were panicking when goalkeeper Anatoliy Trubin<\/a> was sent forward before scoring the crucial fourth goal.<\/p>\n

A late goal for Real Madrid in Lisbon would have earned a 3-3 draw and seen City slip out of the Champions League top eight.<\/p>\n

– Everything you need to know about the draw for the UCL knockout playoff round<\/a><\/p>\n

Instead, with the score at 3-2, Benfica boss Jose Mourinho urged Trubin into the penalty area in the 98th minute and the Ukrainian goalkeeper headed in a fourth to seal a 4-2 win<\/a> that booked their place in playoff on goal difference.<\/p>\n

The result ensured City finished eighth in the table and will not face a two-legged play-off in February.<\/p>\n

But as players and staff watched the drama unfold, Guardiola admitted he was worried when Benfica left their goal unattended to push for another goal.<\/p>\n

Pep Guardiola looks on following Manchester City’s win over Galatasaray.\u00a0Naomi Baker – UEFA\/UEFA via Getty Images<\/p>\n

“We were all there so we didn’t know Benfica needed a goal to qualify so when the goalkeeper goes up, we say, “why you go?” because Madrid can equalise and we are out,” said Guardiola.<\/p>\n

“But it was a good strategy for Jose to score the fourth goal, right!”<\/p>\n

Asked whether he would be sending his old rival Mourinho a thank you message, Guardiola replied: “Yeah, of course.”<\/p>\n

It was a good night for Guardiola, who saw his team do their job on the night and beat <\/a>Galatasaray<\/a> 2-0<\/a> thanks to goals from Erling Haaland<\/a> and Rayan Cherki<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The one downside was an injury to J\u00e9r\u00e9my Doku<\/a>, who set up both goals before going off with a calf problem.<\/p>\n

“The first half was better than the second half,” said Guardiola.<\/p>\n

“Really pleased to finish in the top eight considering how the Champions League has become.<\/p>\n

“When I started 16 or 17 years ago, the Champions League was another type of competition. Today every team is really, really tough.<\/p>\n

“I’m really pleased we don’t play in the playoff stage and hopefully we can arrive in March [for the last 16] at our best.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MANCHESTER, England — Pep Guardiola has revealed the Manchester City squad watched the final minutes of Benfica‘s dramatic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":262811,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-262810","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}