23rd October, 2020
Porto coach Sergio Conceicao accused Manchester City coach Pep Guardiola of pressuring match officials and disrespecting his players during their Champions League clash on Wednesday.
They were both vocal on the sidelines but Conceicao insisted Guardiola attitude during the game was “extremely unpleasant”
A very upset Guardiola saw Porto’s Luis Diaz moved past many of his players to give his team the lead inside 14 minutes at the Etihad Stadium but City responded six minutes later via a penalty scored by Sergio Aguero.
Guardiola’s stars then score twice in the second-half to claim a scrappy 3-1 win but Conceicao had a lot to complain about after the game.
“I’ve got a lot to learn from Pep Guardiola, in the way he pressures referees, talks to opposition players and opposition dugout,” Conceicao told Portuguese media.
“He’s a fantastic example. I have to learn this. We were angels compared to the other dugout.
“He spoke about our country using ugly words. Guardiola’s attitude was extremely unpleasant. The whole Manchester City dugout was because if anybody should have been complaining, it was the Porto bench, because we were extremely hard done by.
“I have to apologise to the referees in Portugal because I complain when I think we are wronged, but comparing the officials of this game and those upstairs in the VAR, international referees have a lot to learn from ours in Portugal.
“The refereeing had a big bearing on the outcome of this match. [Augustin] Marchesin has his leg in a bad state right now because he was fouled before the penalty award.”
However, Guardiola on his part didn’ talk about Conceicao in his post-match comments but noted he was surprised by the tactics deployed by Porto.
“We knew how tough it would be because Porto and Benfica are the best teams in Portugal. They have the winning mentality, they have to win every game,” Guardiola said.
“I was surprised they played so defensively with five at the back, we had to be patient but in the second half we didn’t concede counter-attacks, we didn’t concede set-pieces, we didn’t allow them to run.
“We did the perfect performance against a really good team. It is nice to win games while suffering.”