Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola has hailed his side despite losing 1-2 in the hands of Liverpool in International Champions Cup.
Sadio Mane’s late penalty handed the Citizens their second consecutive defeat following a 1-0 defeat to Borussia Dortmund in the first match. Missing a host of World Cup stars, City opened the scoring approaching the hour mark via Leroy Sane’s brilliance after the Germany star outpaced Virgil van Dijk and Nathaniel Clyne. Mohamed Salah grabbed the equalizer after he was shortly introduced with Mane netting a stoppage-time winner.
“It’s incredible what we have done. The first 75 minutes, against this team which fought for the Champions League last season, I am so, so proud. I am happy to be the manager of these guys for this reason,” Guardiola said.
“For 75 incredible minutes, the players were so tired but worked so hard and for the last part of the game Liverpool brought on incredible quality and deserved to score the goals in the end. But our performance was incredible; first half, players with an average age of 18, 19 years old, it was so good.”
Meanwhile, Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp has praised Mohamed Salah after the forward scored on his return against Manchester City, insisting the Egyptian has no shoulder problems.
Salah was instrumental on his return at the International Champions Cup, netting the equalizer for Liverpool who registered a 2-1 win over Manchester City. The injury he suffered during the Champions League final affected his performance at the World Cup. However, Salah – the reigning Premier League Golden Boot winner and Player of the Year – showed no signs of discomfort after scoring within a minute of his introduction.
Salah came off the bench and canceled out Leroy Sane’s opener in the 63rd minute and he hit the crossbar shortly after, before Sadio Mane converted a penalty in the fourth minute of stoppage time.
Asked about Salah’s return post-match, Liverpool manager Klopp told reporters: “I said before the game, it’s not that he has problems – he has no problems. He only needs to get used to all the different things.
“We do a lot with the shoulder to strengthen the muscles and all that stuff. Usually you don’t do anything with the shoulder but in rehab you feel this and feel that, and you need to learn that’s normal. He is in that moment but he has absolutely no issues, I was not concerned about it otherwise he wouldn’t have played.
“He came in and scored after pretty much 35 seconds. He had a big impact together with Sadio and Dom [Solanke], and the midfield with Marko [Grujic], Pedro [Chirivella] and Ben [Woodburn] played fantastic.
“Both full-backs were then really involved in the offensive situations, which we didn’t have too much in the first half. Both centre-halves were there. Nat Phillips on this level is surprised by himself, that’s really cool; Raggy did well; and Caoimhin [Kelleher] had a nice save.
“So it was really a nice second half which helped us a lot because we all see it’s still there, it’s all good. We only need to keep on working and make sure that in two weeks we have fresher legs than tonight.”