Pep Guardiola: You can't compare Saul Niguez to Lionel Messi

Saul Niguez scored the game’s only goal, Guardiola telling a flash post-match interview that it came largely as a result of his side’s ‘low tone,’ but adding at a press conference that he was generally happy with Bayern.

However, while Guardiola was impressed with Niguez's goal and ability, he warned against comparing the young Spaniard to the player many consider to be the best player in the world, ever. Asked if Niguez's goal recalled one of Messi's efforts, his former manager was circumspect:

"Saul’s goal like Lionel Messi? I think a lot of Saul but I don’t know that it’s good to compare him to Messi. Spanish football has another great talent in Saul.”

Guardiola was optimistic for the second leg.

“The first few minutes were worse than the last few. I’m happy with the performance. In the last 25 minutes of the first half and the entire second, we played very well. I’m not happy about the goal we conceded. It was a fantastic goal by Saul but we still have 90 minutes to recover,” he said, AS reports, before rejecting comparisons to Bayern’s semi against Real Madrid in 2014.

“I don’t know that we learned a lesson. At Santiago Bernabeu we created fewer chances. Madrid shut themselves up well, too. We managed the counter-attacks badly. We’ll have to do better against [Antoine] Griezmann and [Fernando] Torres. I’d settle for creating the same chances as here. We have time. I want to watch the game calmly and see what to do.

“We didn’t score? We have to think about the opponent we were playing against. We lacked a goal, they had Saul. It’s not an excuse. I’m not worried about not having scored. We played to score. We didn’t score, but we played to. They defend very well.

“Jan Oblak has made great saves, Atletico didn’t create chances and we did. We’ll see where we have to improve for the home game.'

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