Pep Guardiola is Grateful for Kevin De Bruyne’s Penalty

DBasia.news –  Manchester City defeated hosts, Real Madrid 2-1 in the first leg of the Champions League top 16. Guardiola was especially pleased with Kevin De Bruyne for his successful penalty kick.

Entertaining Manchester City at the Santiago Bernabeu, Real Madrid Madrid fell 1-2 in the first leg match of the top 16 Champions League, Thursday (02/27/2020). After playing goalless in the first half, Madrid broke the deadlock when Isco opened the scoring in the 60th minute.

However, City were able to respond with Gabriel Jesus’ goal in the 78th minute. Then five minutes later, Kevin de Bruyne’s penalty five minutes later silenced El Real.

Specifically regarding to the penalty goal, Manchester City manager, Pep Guardiola, was thrilled. For information, this season Manchester City has had trouble scoring from the spot.

“Kevin De Bruyne has practiced a penalty and he showed the results. I said ‘thank you’,” he said as quoted by the official UEFA website.

“It takes courage to score a penalty. A great result for tonight,” he continued.

Reporting from talkSport, throughout the 2019/2020 season Manchester City have received 15 penalties. Only 10 were successful with a 66 percent ratio.

Even since 2016 when Guardiola’s arrived at Manchester City, the Citizens penalty ratio in all competitions was bad. 2016/2017 season, City only managed to score 10 goals from 14 penalties, then the next 14 goals from 18 penalties, 14 goals from 19 penalties and 10 goals from 15 penalties this season.

Sergio Aguero, Gabriel Jesus, Ilkay Gundogan and Raheem Sterling often failed. Guardiola even said, it’s better for the goalkeeper, Ederson, to execute the penalty kick.