Guardiola, who has never made it past the quarter-finals with Manchester City, said: "When you win 26 games in 27 and they are not winning the Bundesliga, the pressure is on our shoulders."
Wednesday 7 April 2021 09:56, UK
Pep Guardiola felt the weight of expectation on Manchester City in their Champions League clash with Borussia Dortmund affected them despite their 2-1 win.
Guardiola has never made it past the last eight in the Champions League with City and their quarter-final looked set to be another frustrating night when Marco Reus equalised with six minutes left, cancelling out Kevin De Bruyne's first-half opener.
However, Phil Foden scored a late winner to hand City the advantage going into the return leg in Germany next Wednesday. Their quest for an unprecedented Quadruple life on, although Guardiola felt his team did not deal with the pressure of being heavy favourites to win such a match in the Champions League.
"When you win 26 games in 27 and they are not winning the Bundesliga, the pressure is on our shoulders," he said.
"Everything is guaranteed for us. Everybody believed we would win. We had an incredible commitment and desire to go through.
"Now we fly there at 2-1 - always they score but we will adjust a few things we could not do today.
"In a calm way, the best way possible, the game we played and see what we can do better.
"We will go there to win the game. I ask the players to win the game. We did it and now we go to Dortmund not to defend.
"We will adjust our pressing, adjust our build up and play 90 minutes to try and reach the semi-final."
He added: "To play good in the areas we want to we need to make good build-up and today was not good; Joao (Cancelo) and Rodri were not clever to receive the ball in positions for the other ones but it's difficult always to do what we want to do because they have quality. But it's a good result and we have another chance in one week.
"We're going to adjust a few things to go there and try to win the game.
"[Foden] was a threat in the second half. He was a real threat, arriving in the final third. He had two, three chances and finally scored."
Borussia Dortmund interim coach Edin Terzic has warned Guardiola their Champions League quarter-final tie is far from over despite a 2-1 win for the hosts.
Guardiola was complimentary about Dortmund's performance after the game but Terzic, whose side had levelled the contest at 1-1 six minutes from the end before Foden's last-gasp winner, said his team were ready for another bite at the cherry.
"Pep had some nice words for me at full-time, but we are not done yet. We will see each other again in eight days' time," said Terzic.
"It's half-time and the tie is still open.
"We will be ready to give it our all to overturn the result and reach the next round. We kept their chances to a minimum and posed a threat ourselves going forward. It was evenly matched so we are disappointed with the result in the end."
Guardiola's side are back in action on Saturday for the early kick-off vs Leeds (12.30pm) before the second leg next Wednesday in Dortmund. The Germans play Stuttgart on Saturday as they look to improve their position in the Bundesliga.
