Did Manchester City manager hit on Real Madrid issue? Pep Guardiola’s bizarre advice to Xabi Alonso | OneFootball

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has given Real Madrid counterpart Xabi Alonso a curious piece of advice ahead of his clash with Los Blancos on Wednesday night at the Bernabeu. The former Barcelona man was peppered with questions about the future of Alonso more than anything else.

Alonso’s job is thought to be on the line on Wednesday, with a negative outcome potentially costing the Basque manager his postion. Guardiola was asked if he had a word of friendly advice for his former player.

“To pee with his own one. To pee with his own one. He doesn’t pee cologne so he’ll probably do fine, you’ll see. There’s your headline, right?” referencing a former criticism of himself during his time managing Barcelona. Guardiola was at times accused of ‘peeing cologne’, with similar connotations to the ‘sun shining out of one’s behind’.

Did Guardiola identify Real Madrid’s big issue?

One of the main frustrations of Alonso’s tenure externally seems to be that he has neither won sufficient sway in the dressing room, nor has the power to impose his authority. It has been suggested that Real Madrid’s stars hold too much power.

“I’m not in the dressing room of Real Madrid, so I don’t know the situation. But it depends. The hierarchy, ultimately, is power. If the hierarchy want to give power to the manager, the manager will have the power. If they want to give it to the players, the players will have the power.”

“These games are difficult but he knows it, he’s been here, he knows this reality. This is about winning games. I know they have a lot of absences, I know what happens when you want to build something and many players are injured. It happened to ourselves last season. But of course he’s capable of doing it.”

Image via Violeta Santos Moura / Action Images via Reuters

‘When you don’t win, you know what happens’ – Guardiola

Guardiola was keen to emphasize that he was rooting for Alonso to turn things around, and highlighted both the difficulty of the job, and the key to his exit from a tense situation.

“Of course. We worked together for two and a half years and it was incredible; we shared so much. But Barcelona and Real Madrid are the most difficult clubs to manage, because of the pressure and the environment. It’s been a tough season and everything revolves around winning… and when you don’t win, you know what happens. It happened to me last season! But Xabi is capable of pulling this off.”

Alonso teams not similar to Guardiola sides

Alonso arrived with the reputation of a tactician akin to Guardiola, a departure from the general perception of Zinedine Zidane or Carlo Ancelotti. The ex-Barcelona coach was asked if he saw similarities between his own sides and those of Alonso.

Image via Denis Doyle/Getty Images

“No, my teams are awesome. My teams can’t be compared to any other team. There’s another headline. To each team their own. Xabi knows perfectly what he needs to do. It’s different realities, different clubs, different players. Our only job is to adapt to the players that we have, their personalities and the way they play. Look, 4 days ago, not 4 months ago but 4 days ago, they were leaders of La Liga.”

The future of the Real Madrid manager was also the primary topic during Alonso’s press conference. Alonso assured that he felt he had the backing of the hierarchy, and the unity of the dressing room, while Aurelien Tchouameni pointed the finger at the players for recent poor results.