The Catalan was not afraid to put himself into the middle of an issue which many of the club's supporters feel strongly about following a string of controversial decisions
Pep Guardiola has urged Manchester City fans to put aside their differences with UEFA and stop booing the Champions League anthem.
The club’s supporters have a long-running mistrust of European football’s governing body thanks to a string of sanctions and punishments they perceive to be unfair or heavy-handed.
The list includes a £49 million fine for a breach of Financial Fair Play rulings, allowing opposition fans to attend matches which had previously been scheduled to take place behind closed doors, and fines for minor infringements that have eclipsed those handed out to other club’s for incidents of racist behaviour.
The booing of the anthem has become a regular event ahead of Champions League both at the Etihad Stadium and away from home, though previous manager Manuel Pellegrini was keen not to get too involved in the debate.
Guardiola, however, had no qualms about putting his view forward, and also called on more fans to come and watch the team in future.
Speaking after City’s resounding 4-0 victory over Borussia Monchengladbach, the Catalan said: “I was not here for what happened but they must forget what happened, [it’s] in the past.
“All we can do is play every time better and people say, ‘I spend 90 minutes there and I have fun’. Today the stadium is not completely full so the only thing we can do is play good so the people at home say, ‘Wow next time I will be there’.
“We have to be so proud to play in this competition. Coming here in three or four weeks are the best football players ever with Luis Suarez and Neymar and Barcelona, and we have to enjoy it. The people are listening so I am sure they are going to do that.”
City dominated their Champions League opener, with Sergio Aguero’s hat-trick helping to make light work of a team that had enjoyed a fine record against Guardiola during his time as Bayern Munich boss.
Aguero has now scored nine goals in five matches this season, but Guardiola was unwilling to take the credit for his fine performances.
“I think Sergio is good because he is good. He was good with Manuel. He was good with the national team.
“Only I wanted to convince Sergio that his talent in the box is natural. I cannot teach him that but he has to know that behind him the rest of the team wants to help him and that is what I want to convince him.
“I know perfectly that team, Borussia Monchengladbach, I never won before with this coach [Andre Schubert] and always he creates a lot of problems with my team. Today we created a real good performance except for 10-15 minutes in the first half.”
Guardiola did admit, however, that this was his side’s most complete performance of a season that has now produced seven victories from seven matches.
“In Bucharest it was the same. That was the most important game in pre-season. This was the most important game until now. The pressure we had, except for 10-15 minutes when we didn’t do our high pressing. All the players play high level, the performance from Kevin De Bruyne, Ilkay [Gundogan], Sergio, all of them, to make this performance we needed a high, high level.”
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