Champions League draw: Pep Guardiola goes back to Barcelona in semi-finals

Bayern Munich manager is 'grateful' for the return

Glenn Moore
Friday 24 April 2015 21:00 BST
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Pep Guardiola makes a point form the touchline
Pep Guardiola makes a point form the touchline

It will, of course, be a love-in, at least until the football starts. Yesterday Pep Guardiola welcomed the news that he will take his current team, Bayern Munich, to his old one, Barcelona, in the last four of the Champions League with the comment: “I am grateful to get this chance to return. It is something very special.”

Guardiola, who won the European Cup as a player with Barça and two Champions League titles as coach, added: “I cannot say anything bad about Barcelona. I have nothing but respect for Barça. I will never forget these two games. We will need the entire team to beat Barcelona. Believe me, they are the strongest.”

Luis Enrique, a former team-mate, now coach at the Nou Camp, responded: “It is a special game because Pep is there. It’s a great date for all Barça fans.”

“I am very happy for Luis Enrique,” Guardiola added. “He is a great coach and a fine human being.”

It is only two seasons since the pair met during Guardiola’s sabbatical. Bayern stunned Barça with a 7-0 aggregate win but goalkeeper Manuel Neuer insisted that result “doesn’t mean much any more, things have changed at both clubs”.

Guardiola’s homecoming overshadows Carlo Ancelotti’s less emotional return to Juventus, where he won the Intertoto Cup before being sacked after two seasons. That tie is a repeat of the 1998 final, won by Real Madrid.

The Europa League draw was massively simplified for Uefa when Andre Villas-Boas’s Zenit St Petersburg were knocked out, thus avoiding the charged prospect of Russian and Ukrainian teams meeting in the Warsaw final.

Rafael Benitez is still on course to leave Napoli in glory with his team favoured to beat Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk, who have to play their home matches in Kiev due to the continuing conflict in Eastern Ukraine.

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