Pep Guardiola has offered advice on how to win the Champions League.
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The former Manchester City boss was asked for his view on what another one of his old clubs, Barcelona, needed to win the competition for the first time since 2015.
The comments may feel quite relevant to new Liverpool head coach Andoni Iraola, with the Reds themselves yet to lift the trophy since their Madrid win in 2019, and set to embark on a new project.
Pep Guardiola is right: Andoni Iraola must not let the Champions League get in the way of the project
Let’s be clear on one thing: winning the Champions League should be a key objective for Liverpool every single season. That’s a non-negotiable standard for a club of Liverpool’s standing (and history) in the game.
But Guardiola’s comments, relayed on X (formerly Twitter) by Fabrizio Romano, do ring true for our new boss, Iraola.
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You can see how the weight of expectation, particularly at clubs like Liverpool and Barcelona, can destroy projects and managers.
We expect the Reds to be competing on all fronts next term, as we would any season, but there has to also simultaneously be a willingness to allow our Basque-born head coach to implement his ideas.
As Pep Guardiola notes: “What matters is that the daily work is excellent, that the team keeps growing and improving, and that they don’t believe the season is a failure just because they don’t reach the Champions League final or win it.
“The league is what sets the foundation for judging whether a season has been good or not.”
Liverpool’s league season stunk under Arne Slot
The comments ring painfully true for Arne Slot’s side last term, with the Reds just about limping over the finish line to secure Champions League football for 2026/27.
And our European campaign? Well, the less said about that the better, but a 4-1 defeat at Anfield to PSV and a 4-0 aggregate defeat to PSG in the knockouts says plenty.
Inconsistent in the league (to say the least) and spineless when it mattered in Europe.
The Premier League must provide the foundation for Andoni Iraola to make a success of his stay at L4. We need to see a connection between fans, players and manager; a style of play befitting of Liverpool’s footballing traditions; and, from a recruitment perspective, numbers in the squad that allow us to compete on all fronts. The Spaniard can’t be allowed to enter the new campaign without the proper tools at his disposal.
From that point on, assuming all goes to plan this summer, it’s on Iraola to build the foundation from which we can, hopefully, at some point in the near future, mount a successful charge for the Champions League trophy.
It’s advice worth listening to, at any rate.
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