Pep Guardiola: Manchester City Champions League success is impossible unless fans are 'seduced'

'We are going to try in football to seduce our fans to come here and say: ‘OK, we can do it'

Pep Guardiola has claimed it will be “impossible” for Manchester City to win the Champions League unless his team can “seduce” supporters into loving the competition.

City fans have long shown an antipathy towards the Champions League and its organisers Uefa, with the competition’s pre-match anthem consistently booed by the home crowd at the Etihad Stadium.

The Premier League champions are currently being investigated by Uefa for alleged financial fair play violations and could be banned from the Champions League next season if found to have broken the rules.

City were previously fined £49m by Uefa for an FFP breach in 2014, after which booing of the Champions League anthem among supporters became more pronounced.

European football returns to the Etihad on Tuesday night with the visit of Dinamo Zagreb. The Champions League is the only major competition which eludes Guardiola at City, but he admitted at his pre-match press conference that many of the club’s fans would prefer domestic success.

“The fans must know that without them, without the nice environment at home, it’s impossible,” he said. “We cannot do it alone. It’s impossible. I have a bit of experience with that, even with incredible supporting you are not able to win it.

“We are going to try in football to seduce our fans to come here and say: ‘OK, we can do it.’

“I know for the fans the Premier League here in England is the most exciting. We know as a club, we make polls and people prefer by far to win the Premier League than the Champions League.

“Here in England, I know how special it is, but this competition is nice too. Our fans have to live this competition like a dream.”

Guardiola claimed that City’s lack of history in the Champions League when compared with the likes of Manchester United and Liverpool is also a factor in the hostility of City fans towards the competition.

“We were at home drinking a beer watching Liverpool and United there. Not for a few years, for decades,” he said. “That is in the culture of the club.”

“It’s important to be there and try and the only way is to say to our fans come to join us, come to the stadium and support us. Make the stadium full. In the bad moments, support us because these guys deserve it for what we have done in especially the last two seasons.

“Incredible players like David Silva – the quickest player to 200 victories in Premier League history. These players are fantastic, awesome, they are outrageous. They are top. I think they deserve it in this competition every single game.

“They feel they want to win, want to make a step forward too. [It is] not only desire for the manager, staff, chairman and people working in the club. We need the fans. If not the competition is more difficult, it’s almost impossible.”