adminThe former Barcelona coach said he was ready to accept the challenge of coaching a team that has just played an outstanding season under Jupp Heynckes, winning the domestic league and Cup double and topping it off with the Champions League soccer title.
“I must accept the comparison,” Guardiola, dressed in a dapper three-piece grey suit and burgundy tie and speaking in German throughout, told an overflowing news conference at the club’s Allianz Arena.
“I have to be able to live with that. I am under pressure, of course, but I know this and I accept this challenge without fear and that is why I am the coach,” he said.
The 42-year-old Guardiola, who won 14 trophies in four years at Barcelona, is Bayern’s biggest signing for the coming season as they eye more silverware. He took a year out after leaving the Spanish club in 2012, spending most of his time in New York.
“I am ready. My time in Barcelona was wonderful but I needed to move on and Bayern gave me the possibility and I had to take it.”
“What I feel now is a gift, a blessing to be here to be with Bayern and the very thought about me as the coach is a gift,” added the Spaniard who has signed a three-year contract.
He said his first reason for accepting the Bayern offer was the club’s players and history.
“It is one of the world’s biggest clubs and the people who run the club know how to do it well and they took the decision to call me.”
“Sometimes you take over a team on the way down . . . like in my first year as professional coach,” said Guardiola, flanked by club bosses Uli Hoeness, CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge and sports director Matthias Sammer.
“This situation is completely different. It is a good thing it is different. I take over a team that played exceptionally in the last season. They won three titles. This is the situation. When you are Bayern coach you a always have pressure to play well.”
Guardiola said he would not be changing much in a team that had just completed their most successful season in history and said it would be “arrogant” to talk about the start of a new era.
He also refused to comment on individual players, saying he still had to get to know the team and take a look a the club’s youth teams as well.— Soccernet.
Online Reporter