As Barcelona prepares for the second leg of the Spanish Super Cup against Real Madrid, the club’s manager Pep Guardiola admitted in a press conference that its rivals proved to be the better team at this stage of the season by outperforming the Catalan club in the first leg’s 2-2 draw.
"In the first leg, Madrid was better, in these three days we have improved some things, but I believe they are still better," Guardiola said.
Barcelona hasn’t been able to train with its full roster during preseason as its superstar forward Lionel Messi played in the Copa America and key performers Xavi and Carlos Puyol have been recovering from injury.
The club also added two major additions in Alexis Sanchez and most recently, Cesc Fabregas. The team’s chemistry is still developing and Guardiola believes if the Super Cup was held two weeks, the side might look completely different.
“Every match is a story " he explained. "If the return leg were in two weeks, it would be different "
Despite having to get his team acclimated to each other, Guardiola believes that the team can’t use that as an excuse if it wants to hoist the opening trophy of the Spanish league season.
"We will have to play better than we did at the Santiago Bernabeu to win the Supercopa " said Guardiola. "We have to play with the kind of speed we could not put in our game the other day. Three days have passed, we have trained really well "
One major boost to the squad will be the debut of Fabregas, who joined from English Premier League club Arsenal earlier this week. Guardiola confirmed that the former Barcelona academy player will be included in the roster for the encounter, although he would not mention whether he will be given the nod to start.
"We will see today. He has trained very well, a lot of time alone, and also some bits with the team " the coach noted. "He will surely be in the squad, but tomorrow we will see if he will play the whole 90 minutes or not."
No comments:
Post a Comment