City players must keep their cool in Atletico return leg, says Guardiola

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola called on his players to control their emotions in their Champions League quarter-final return leg at Atletico Madrid next week. Kevin De Bruyne’s 70th minute goal earned City a 1-0 win on Tuesday night in a game that had several flashpoints, including an incident in which a prone Jack Grealish was struck in the head from close range by a clearance from Angel Correa.
Guardiola’s side spent much of the night banging their heads against the red and white wall of Atletico’s massed defence at the Etihad Stadium. But Guardiola sent on Phil Foden midway through the second half and his sublime pass teed up De Bruyne to finally reward City for their territorial dominance.
“We have to control our emotions and do what we have to do,” Guardiola said the game. “There will be a referee there and we have to play our game. (Atletico) have faced this kind of knockout stages many times and it will be a good test for us with our maturity in this game. Jack reacted really well and stayed focused on what we needed to do.”
The Spaniard added that City would not simply look to defend their 1-0 advantage in Madrid and would be looking to kill off the tie. “We’ve won the game with 1-0 and after 1-0 it was a little bit different. All the players start to press a little bit higher,” Guardiola said. “If the game starts on the good side for Atletico, maybe they come back in to the game. Now we have five days to prepare and review the game and try to (see) what we can do to attack a bit better and go there to not defend the result and try and win the game.”
At the start of a season-defining 11 days for treble-chasing City, this was a qualified success that justified their patient performance. But Atletico have already knocked out Manchester United in the last 16 this season, while Liverpool fell victim to Diego Simeone’s side when the Reds were the holders in 2019-20. City have no margin for error over the next two weeks as the Premier League leaders host Liverpool, just a point behind them in the title race, on Sunday. They head to Madrid next week before facing Liverpool again in the FA Cup semi-finals at Wembley three days later.
Meanwhile, Atletico Madrid coach Diego Simeone was happy with his side’s defending against City but said they must get a bigger share of possession in the return leg if they are to advance. Atletico failed to produce a single shot on target after spending much of the contest camped in their own half. “In the first half we defended very well,” Simeone said. “If you value the coordinated attacking, you also have to value the strong and unashamed defence. We have to improve, improve and try to have more of the ball. That comes with calmness, with the humility of first having a good collective defensive effort.”