Guardiola hails Bayern heroes

Pep Guardiola was full of praise for his Bayern Munich players after they completed a remarkable comeback in the second leg of their Champions League last 16-tie with Juventus.

Bayern found themselves 2-0 down at home to the Italian giants but fought back to 2-2, with Thomas Muller equalising in the final moments of the 90 minutes, before Guardiola and Co. won 4-2 in extra time and 6-4 on aggregate.

Guardiola said his team had put themselves in a terrible position after losing the two goals, but was thrilled with the manner in which they reclaimed the tie on Wednesday.

“We played and won against one of last season’s finalists,” he said.

“We scored four goals against an Italian team. And now we are playing in the quarter-finals. So congratulations to my players but also to Juventus.

“During half-time I told the players that they could not afford to concede another goal, but that if we could score one ourselves, anything could happen, especially with the German mentality.

“I asked them to play more down the wings, with Ribéry and Costa. Then at the start of the second half Juve had some chances but after that we took control of the game.

“This is football: one minute you play badly, the next you are really good.”

But Guardiola was full of praise for his fallen opponents, who he said gave Bayern one of their biggest tests yet.

“Juventus are a really strong team. Early on we were quite nervous,” the Spaniard said.

“Imagine if they had scored the third goal, that would have been it. But it was us who scored and we took charge. Especially in extra time there was just one team playing and that was Bayern.”