Manuel Pellegrini could not avoid questions about the end of his career at Manchester City, while Jurgen Klopp was disappointed that Dortmund's Borussia failed to strike their opponents. Both coaches' teams said goodbye to the Champions League on Wednesday, as they were unable to recover in the return leg matches.
Manchester City lost 0-1 to Barcelona in Spain, who won the first leg as well (2-1). And Borussia was defeated 3-0 by Juventus in their own field. Juventus arrived in Germany leading 2-1.
"We lacked the blow. If you don't strike, you won't score," said J. Klopp.
Carlos Tevez scored the first goal in the third minute.
"Then the opponents' confidence started to grow every minute. It wasn't beautiful, but it can be explained. Juventus was a better team than us and played open football excellently. We didn't believe in ourselves like the opponents. We have to accept the defeat. We dropped out of the Champions League. It's not a problem, as it has happened to other teams in this stage," said J. Klopp.
He wouldn't have agreed with M. Pellegrini. The engineer-like coach from Chile had to justify his job, facing even more criticism in England. Manchester City was the last English club with a chance to advance to the Champions League quarterfinals, but they failed.
"Maybe we could have gone further if we hadn't had to play against Barcelona. We didn't play as well in the first half, but in the second we had chances, we took risks. We had to score twice and maybe that would have happened if we had converted the penalty," said M. Pellegrini, remembering S. Aguero's missed shot.
The coach was also unhappy because UEFA has imposed Financial Fair Play (FFP) sanctions on Manchester City. Manchester City had to register only 21 players in the Champions League because the club exceeded the permissible expense limit.
"It wasn't our best year to continue our work in Europe. We were given important penalties - restrictions on players and expenses. The season was tough," said M. Pellegrini.
lrytas.lt
