Guardiola on young players breaking through and characteristics of new signings

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Guardiola on young players breaking through and characteristics of new signings  09/01/2026  CFGA, MANCHESTER, UK

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00:00A week or so ago about the difficulty of defending long throws.

00:04You've got one who can do it now, how much do you plan to use it?

00:09I have many thousand other priorities than that.

00:13Yeah.

00:14It's not a big issue to make the team improve.

00:17It's a detail, we think about it, we talk about it, but that's the point.

00:22Do you feel like it could be a useful weapon though?

00:25No, listen, when you win seven games in a row, winning or eleven and beaten, you have really, really good things.

00:32And the other one is not good things, not now, but three games that we could not be able to win or even lose,

00:37but we could not win, but it's the same as seven.

00:40And the amount of time that we have, that is no time, because obviously we have a lot of games every three days,

00:47three days, three days, three days, three days.

00:49You have to choose the priorities, and priorities will not be long throws, I'm sorry.

00:53But there are things more and more important to make the team grow, grow as a team.

01:00Hi, Pep.

01:01A couple of weeks ago, Ruben Amarin was talking about the academy at Manchester United,

01:05and I wouldn't expect you to comment on that, obviously.

01:07But he was saying he felt there was like a sense of entitlement at his academy then.

01:12Obviously, you're bringing players through all the time you have done ever since you've been here, really,

01:16which suggests there isn't a sense of entitlement.

01:18I just wonder, how do you avoid that?

01:20Obviously, in modern football, it must be quite difficult to avoid that sense of entitlement that some young players can get.

01:26How do you avoid that as a club with all these young guys you're bringing through?

01:30Always I have the feeling that I should have looked a little bit more to the academy.

01:35Always if I have a little bit more regret in my tenure here, 10 years, go a little bit more there.

01:42Because I have the feeling that always helps you, always.

01:47But at the same time, to give that time, that they are not a final product for the academy player,

01:57maybe we're not able to win six Premier Leagues.

02:00Because to do that, it's not about the skills.

02:05It's the composer.

02:06It's about what you have to do in every single moment, every single minute of the game.

02:10It gives you time.

02:11It gives you the time you have played many, many, many years in one team.

02:15And the other young lads don't have that.

02:17So that's why the process to combine,

02:20they have to win today and tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.

02:24Otherwise, we lose.

02:26Imagine the battles we have against last year against Arsenal or Liverpool many, many years.

02:30How many years have we lose that game?

02:33We are going to the Premier League.

02:34It gives them a moment, the chance for the academy.

02:36You know, it's difficult.

02:38But there are other clubs that can do it because they have the pressure

02:40to the Champions League win the Premier League.

02:43That's why in this ambivalence sometimes it's not easy to find a solution, to be honest.

02:49You seem to have quite high character guys coming through the academy though.

02:53Is that something you work on?

02:54The sort of personality and the character traits of those young players?

02:57The only problem in the academy, do you know what it is?

02:59They play here in this stadium.

03:01You know the stadium?

03:02With ten people.

03:03This is a problem.

03:06The college is there.

03:07With ten people.

03:08With the same age.

03:10And that's why to grow up, to be a better player as quick as possible, that is not the way.

03:16The way is playing against Exeter.

03:19That is the way.

03:21I don't know how many spectators in the stadium, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40 thousand people.

03:26Like support conditionally, like guys like our fathers with three kids at home.

03:35That is the way you challenge.

03:39The skills are there.

03:41Skills is not the question.

03:43All the academies, I'm pretty sure United and Liverpool's or Chelsea's, they have a good.

03:48This country loses the amount of incredible English talent players, young players.

03:52But they grow up, they don't compete.

03:54They don't compete.

03:56And that's why the process is a little bit.

03:58Sometimes you don't know exactly.

04:00It's the right moment, the right tempo to go.

04:03Hi, Pep.

04:04Just going back to Antoine.

04:06Obviously, you say you've kept an eye on him for a few years.

04:08He's a player that has spoken a lot about rejection, you know, trials at clubs.

04:12And then at Bristol City, he had loan spells at Bath City, Newport.

04:15And, you know, really worked hard to move up even at Bristol City.

04:18He had quite a few years in the championship.

04:20Is his character quite important that he is someone that has looked to improve year in year and not, you know, accept rejection?

04:25Yeah, sometimes you come up and write early, sooner, and sometimes you need.

04:32But I'm pretty sure that setbacks, that difficulties make every player, you know, Antoine, not just Antoine,

04:38make the players who you are.

04:41That I completely agree with you.

04:43So, sometimes a little bit later.

04:46But it was to be stubborn, to dig in, digging, and at the end, look what happened.

04:51And maybe now, you know, now feels, oh, I'm going to play the Champions League.

04:56You know, and this enthusiasm, this passion, you know, to do, to play,

05:01you know, European competitions.

05:04I didn't play before, that is extraordinary.

05:06And we need, we have to take it, you know.

05:10Everything is about passion, love and life, you know, and he will bring us.

05:14When you're looking to sign a player, do you look at the character as well?

05:17Have you been asking about Antoine in the background for a while?

05:19Yeah, the club do that job, yeah. I think all the clubs do that job.

05:23It's not just the TV and see his actions in the wingers or in that position.

05:28So, yeah, everyone tried to know, you know, for former players that we had, you know,

05:36and the club, of course, you have to try to, you know, to settle in the way we live and the way we behave.

05:48Hi, Pep. Obviously, the squad has changed a lot in the last year with big players going and a lot new coming in.

05:54And like Semenyo now, they've got such, like, game-changing qualities like pace and power and, like, high quality.

06:01And even in goal, Donnarumma is like a big game-changer. Kusinov with his pace, those kind of things.

06:08But I know you were talking a couple of weeks ago about still need to be better in the build-up.

06:12And when you were talking about Semenyo and the others, they've got this amazing quality,

06:15but maybe don't think to go and win the ball back.

06:18But you can't teach what they have got, but you can teach that desire to go and get the ball back.

06:25Is that basically what the idea is with building the squad?

06:28You've got all these players now with the energy and legs and quality,

06:32but there's maybe other things that you can teach them and you can make better.

06:36And what we're seeing now is the process of trying to merge the two things together

06:41with all this amazing stuff they've got and what you can give them as well.

06:46I think the wingers, the modern wingers, is a little bit more than...

06:50Before, always, we thought the wingers, the small guys, you know, small players, ability.

06:56And today the...

06:58I think the future, you see PSG, for example, or you see, for example, Madrid,

07:02or Barcelona with La Minha Mal.

07:05Today the modern, I think, the modern wingers, like Sané type, you know, tall, long legs,

07:10incredible fuzz like Antoine, you know, in this type of players.

07:16Of course, this energy in the wingers have a pace in behind,

07:19a run against one is massively for the tradition important, but it's true.

07:23I never, ever in my life I will deny the fact that we can play better from behind

07:29and try to do it.

07:30Never, ever.

07:31Because I just love it.

07:34And when it happens, I don't think I will not do it.

07:39I just believe we have to do better.

07:41But in part, it's because for Dijio, for central defender Kusanov,

07:46from Mateus Nunes playing that position new, for, I don't know, Nico Gonzalez,

07:54for Tijanis, for example, from players like playing in the middle that, yeah, we need time.

08:00Still, it's not final product. We need time.

08:02But in this mix, to try to win in games and go in that, step by step, we will do it.

08:09But did you give us a big step of that when you buy Donnarumma?

08:13Donnarumma is really, really good in the tempo for the short passes.

08:19And the passes, he has not the, should the long pass, they have Ederson.

08:23But it's not any other keeper had that pass for Ederson.

08:26But Dijio is really good in the composing, the first controls,

08:31and the taking decision in the short is much, much better than the people can think about it.

08:38Pep, is tomorrow an opportunity to rest some of your players

08:42and play a lot of academy players from the start?

08:45A few of them, but not much.

08:48No, we have to come back to winning games.

08:52The FA Cup is the FA Cup, so...

08:55And just in terms of when you have a lot of academy players train with you every day,

09:01what do you want to see from them in training to convince you

09:05that they're ready to play in the first team?

09:07I have to see who they are.

09:09I don't want to ask what they have to do.

09:12I want to see who they are and that's what we see.

09:15And it's not about the skills, not just the skills.

09:18Just for many, many, many things.

09:20That is what I want to watch.

09:22What are some of those many things though?

09:26Let me see.

09:28When I'm there, I'm watching and I see.

09:30And in that, I'm good.

09:33And when I'm not good, I have assistant coaches, they are good too.

09:36So with six, four, six, eight eyes, we can't realise who they are.

09:41So I have to discover them.

09:43So it's the same with Antoine.

09:45He's coming, here we are, but I have to see them.

09:47I have to see him.

09:48So this is what is, this is our job.

09:51People, it's not about, you have to do this, you have to do that.

09:53No, you have to play.

09:54Show me.

09:55No, it's a movie, no?

09:57They say, show me the money.

09:59So that's that.

10:01Thank you, everyone.

10:03See you tomorrow.

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