Pep Guardiola says ‘future will be bright’ for Man City after Real Madrid defeat

Pep Guardiola promised his Manchester City side “will be back” next season after Real Madrid ended their Champions League hopes for a fourth time in the last five years.

City always faced an uphill task in the second leg of this last-16 tie after their 3-0 defeat at the Bernabeu last week, but things got harder 20 minutes in when skipper Bernardo Silva was sent off for stopping Vinicius Junior’s shot with an elbow on the line, with the Brazilian scoring the penalty.

Erling Haaland pulled one back – his first goal since February 17 – but despite a strong display City could not get back into it.

“They always have shown (spirit),” Guardiola said of his players. “After 3-0 and after 4-0 and 10 against 11 it was almost impossible, but the future will be bright and next season will we back.

“We learn, many players are new…But always sport is challenge. We go home and have the feeling that we could not play a proper game, 10 against 11, to see what happened.

“Today, 5-1, we congratulate Madrid, but…the feeling is that I would loved the way we started and I would have loved to have played 11 against 11, but football happens. Madrid are an extraordinary team that punish you when you make a mistake.”

After a damaging draw at West Ham, sandwiched between the Madrid defeats, City must pick themselves up for Sunday’s Carabao Cup final against Arsenal.

“When we are out (of the Champions League) and our position in the Premier League, still we are not a complete team, that is the reality, I’m not going to (deny it),” Guardiola added.

“I’ve been at Manchester City when we were a team in all the different aspects that define a team, and still we are not, but in terms of that we have a final on Sunday, we have the FA Cup (quarter-final) against Liverpool here, the Premier League still to fight (for) and finish well the Premier League.

“Prepare good decisions for next season and next season and next season we will be back in the Champions League. That is what we have to do.”

Guardiola’s reference to next season was noteworthy given continuing speculation that this might be his last in Manchester, with one year left on his contract.

Asked directly if his comments meant he was staying, he said: “I will say I will be back, because I am part of that. Like at Barcelona and Bayern Munich, when I have been there I am part of it.

“I am incredibly attached to that club, that organisation, because it has been one decade, and when I say ‘we’ it’s because I’m part of that. I’m part of that.”

Madrid had been second favourites going into last week’s first leg given some indifferent league form and a long list of absentees, but showed their class over the two legs.

“To win in the way we did today is not very easy,” Alvaro Arbeloa said. “It was a really tough tie against a team like this against players with such talent and a large squad.

“Not many people would have said we would have gone through. That is down to the work of the players. They deserve it for the performances they are putting through.”