Pep Guardiola Jokes About Overthinking Big Games: ‘We Play With 12 Tomorrow’

Much of the talk surrounding Manchester City’s Champions League final loss to Chelsea last season centered on manager Pep Guardiola’s overthinking of big games. On Monday, Guardiola joked that he may have found the solution: playing with 12 players. 

Prior to Manchester City’s Champions League quarterfinal matchup with Atlético Madrid, Guardiola was beset by questions over his tactics in big games. The former Barcelona and Bayern Munich manager appeared to respond sarcastically ahead of Tuesday’s first leg.  

“In the Champions League I always overthink,” Guardiola said in a press conference. “I always create new tactics and ideas, and tomorrow you will see a new one. I overthink a lot, that’s why I have very good results in the Champions League. It would be boring if my job, all the time, we had to play the same way.

“If people can believe I will approach the same way against Atlético Madrid to Liverpool, I don’t think like that because the movements from Liverpool are completely different than Atlético Madrid, especially because the players are all different. Every player has a mother and father and the mother and father give different personalities to the players. And I have to adapt and adjust. That’s why I love to overthink and create stupid tactics, and when I don’t win I am punished. Tonight I will take inspiration and I’m going to do incredible tactics tomorrow. We play with 12 tomorrow.”

Despite being a fixture at Barcelona, where he won two Champions League titles, Guardiola has only faced Diego Simeone’s Atlético on three occasions. While Guardiola’s side has won two of the three, their last meeting came in the Champions League semifinal in 2016, when Atlético knocked Bayern out on away goals. 

After eliminating Manchester United in the round of 16, Atlético Madrid will return to Manchester on Tuesday looking to hand Guardiola his fourth quarterfinal exit in the last five seasons at City.