Guardiola warns Barcelona

(GSM) – Josep Guardiola has warned his players ahead of the Champions League clash with VfB Stuttgart.

The Barcelona manager has told them that they will have to be at their best to beat the Bundesliga side.

Guardiola is determined that Barca will not go out of the competition because of a lack of focus. After the 4-0 defeat of Racing Santander on Saturday, he warned the players: “We have to take another step forward if we want to be champions.”

Ahead of the first leg of the eight finals he said: “Scoring four goals against Racing has merit but it’s not enough to compete with German football.

“We know this standard won’t be enough to put us through to the quarterfinals. We have to recover our good form”.

Last season, the Blaugrana suffered during the first half hour of their match against Olympique Lyon after Juninho scored from a free kick: “It was a very good experience. Perhaps our toughest tie,” Guardiola added.

“Also, in recent years the champions have gone out in the R16. We have to fight against the feeling that we will win everything.

“Everybody thinks we’ll clinch the tie in the first leg and if we believe that we’ll have no chance of getting through to the quarterfinal”.

Guardiola insists he will not understimate Stuttgart who have performed well under the reigns of new coach Christian Gross.

“We have to score goals, we have to attack well, not run with the ball and pass it about.

“Under Gross Stuttgart have great numbers when it comes to goals and results. They’ve got a lot of interesting things”.