Spalletti suspects Guardiola's praise of Napoli is to 'knock them down

Napoli advanced to the quarter-finals of the Champions League by defeating Eintracht Frankfurt 5-0 on aggregate. Spalletti, who led Napoli to this stage of the competition for the first time, also has the team sitting comfortably at the top of Serie A with an 18-point lead over Inter Milan.

Guardiola has been closely watching Napoli's progress and praised them as "the best team in Europe" after Manchester City defeated RB Leipzig 7-0 in the second leg of their round of 16 tie.

However, Spalletti sees Guardiola's comments as a tactic to psychologically weaken

if they face City in the latter stages of the competition.

Asked on Guardiola's comments after Napoli's 3-0 second-leg win against Eintracht, Spalletti told Amazon Prime Italia:

"I don’t feel proud, I don’t feel anything. I know this game that everyone does to put pressure on the others. Are we putting Napoli in front of Manchester City? If they can spend €900m compared to our €9m, there must be a reason. It’s a game to build us up so they can knock us down."

Spalletti was delighted with his team's progression to the next round but also cautioned his players to stay focused and maintain the same attitude as they move forward, recognizing that the path to a potential final in Istanbul will only become more difficult.

"It is a great result, we are going to enjoy it along with all our fans,"

he added.

"Now it becomes fundamental that we maintain the same attitude we had this evening, because we didn’t have the same quality as usual at the start, but we still executed the moves well and allowed very little to the opposition. We kept clear heads. If Napoli in the entire history of this club had not reached the quarter-finals before, that means this is a great result."

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