Pep Guardiola has had the best part of 10 weeks to digest defeat but he still blames himself for Manchester City’s last European exit.
As they start their Champions League campaign on Wednesday, it is with memories of their last disappointment still strong.
That 3-1 loss to Lyon is both a warning and a motivation. Guardiola believes City have not been good enough to win the prize that has eluded them. And yet he is convinced it is within their grasp if they can eliminate the errors that have proved their undoing. Two late goals by Moussa Dembele eliminated them in August and it still preys on Guardiola's mind.
“It was a tough moment,” said the City manager. “I felt so responsible for this, how the club and players fought to achieve it, and I was not able to drive them.
"Still, right now, I feel responsible watching the game. I don’t blame one single player. I feel so bad for them. The reality is every team and manager has to dream with high expectations but the reality is we have not preformed to the level – we have to accept it with humility. We made mistakes and in this competition you cannot do it.”
It was City’s third consecutive quarter-final exit under the Catalan. If the accusation is that they are no nearer to conquering the continent, they start a 10th successive campaign among the European elite with Guardiola sensing the margins separating them from realising their ambitions are small.
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“I have the feeling that we are close,” he explained. “Every season we analyse when we went out – Liverpool, Tottenham, Lyon – we are close but we do some mistakes that make me feel we don’t deserve to go through. We are close, not far away. The teams they were not better than us, none of them, but there are little gaps. When you don’t solve it, you don’t deserve it.
“Being in the quarter-finals for a long time and being there 10 times in a row is a good success for us but the next step is to move forward. The bad things in the Champions League is the past. Now it is a new opportunity.”
His message was part rallying cry, part cautionary tale. Guardiola was asked if City are ready to win the Champions League. He did not want to get ahead of himself as he contemplated a date with Porto on Wednesday.
“It is just the first step,” he said. “We are still far away to think of big targets. Considering what happened in the last seasons, we are not allowed to dream much higher. But this season starts from zero again. New chance, new opportunity.”
A new player has come in for praise. Ruben Dias has earned rave reviews for his performances against Leeds and Arsenal and the Portugal international shrugged off the burden that came with his price tag. There are expectations that he will prove the belated successor to Vincent Kompany but Dias sounded unworried.
“I have had pressure when I was young. I had pressure when I got to Benfica first team and when I went to the national team and I have got pressure now. It is part of football. The higher you go the more pressure you have. I like it and it is all good.”
Guardiola has already described the centre-back as a leader and Dias welcomed that. “I have always considered that in a team every single player needs to be a leader of himself,” he said.
“I have worked all my life to discipline myself know what I want and work where I want to be. Everything else comes naturally with my personality. I will just keep the way I am and working the way I have always been working.”
Now the former Benfica man’s tasks include briefing his new team-mates on their opponents. “I know them well and hopefully it will be good intel for the way we approach the game,” he said.
