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Pep Guardiola Lauds Napoli as a Team to Fear

Pep Guardiola has held on Napoli as one of the best teams in Europe at the moment. Manchester City have been grouped alongside the Italian outfit in the 2017-18 group stages.


Even though City have been able to avoid a tough group, manager Guardiola says that Napoli should not be treated lightly. In the past, City have largely been drawn against the likes of Bayern Munich, Barcelona, and Real Madrid in the group stages. It has led to repeated failings in the competition by City, who are yet to win the title even after spending vast sums of money.

Napoli, Shakhtar Donetsk, and Feyenoord complete the group apart from Manchester City, and Guardiola says that every team in the group are extremely good in their own right. He is not expecting any easy matches in this stage of the competition. City qualify automatically for the group stages after finishing third in the table last season. They have made a good start to the season after a victory over Brighton, although the home draw against Everton is a slight disappointment. Napoli have been quite strong in the Italian Serie A without actually winning the league title, and it is down to Juventus dominating the competition for the last six years.

"When the third pot team is Napoli - the best team in the pot - it is complicated. In the Champions League we can expect pots one and two will be strong but today all the teams are strong.We're going to face the team who played the best football in Italy.I'm not talking about winning. I like to watch the teams who want to play.In Italy, where the culture is defensive in the box, Napoli play 40 metres in front, a bit like Arrigo Sacchi did once [at AC Milan]. With the ball they are fantastic,” said Guardiola.

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