Guardiola praises PSG pair Verratti and Messi

Pep Guardiola

revealed that he is “in love” with

’s

Marco Verratti

and he praised

Lionel Messi

after

were defeated in the Champions League.

The six-time Ballon d’Or winner netted his first goal for the Ligue 1 side after Idrissa Gueye scored the opener in their 2-0 win over Guardiola’s side.

The City boss hailed the 34-year-old as well as Verratti, who contributed to Italy’s Euro 2020 victory in the summer.

"

I'm in love,"

Guardiola told reporters post-match.

"He's an exceptional player because he's under pressure and has the calmness to take on extra touch and in that moment create extra passes behind our midfield players.

"I know the character and personality that he has and he did it again. I'm happy he's back from his injury and yeah, an exceptional player.

"He's not tall from his aspect from outside, but when you see how he moves, how he plays… he's not a player for long distance passes, but you can count on him to always help to make a build up and know exactly where the spaces are to create other situations.

"Especially in the first half, second half was much better controlled by Kevin [De Bruyne], but first half we were a little bit soft with him."

Messi met the back of the net more (seven) in the Champions League against City than any other player.

City were eyeing the former Barcelona star before he made a move to PSG when he hit free agency.

"I wish, through my short personal relationship with him, I wish him the best," Guardiola said. "If he’s happy and enjoying this period in Paris, I will be happy. He made me so happy when we worked together, he decided for many reasons to come here, for him and his family I wish him the best."

On dealing with Messi, Guardiola added:

"We deal with PSG first of all. We know that it is impossible to control Leo [Messi] during the [whole] 90 minutes, but they were not giving him a lot of touches of the ball.

"Of course, he is coming back from some injuries, so he lacked a bit of rhythm, but we know when he can run and be quite close to the ball, he is unstoppable. What we have done is minimise as much

as possible these kind of actions and create the chances that we could create. I’m satisfied for the way we played, it was the same as when we were at Stamford Bridge. I said after the game, I’m happy for the victory of course, but the way we played today was quite similar.

"So, the people cannot deny that we were there… this is our team. In good and bad, improving or not improving, this is our team. We arrived here, played our game and they defended deep really well with seven and a half players.

"This is the risk when you lose the ball and they can make one pass, especially [Marco] Verratti, an exceptional, extraordinary player that can have contact with Neymar and Messi where they can run, so always it’s difficult. But even with that, they didn’t do much and that's all."

City had their first Champions League group-stage loss since 2018, when they were beaten 2-1 at the hands of Lyon.

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