Football
PA Sport 8y

Pep Guardiola wants to win Bundesliga at Allianz Arena next weekend

Bayern Munich coach Pep Guardiola felt there was a silver lining in Borussia Dortmund's win over Stuttgart on Saturday, since it meant his side can win the Bundesliga in front of their own fans next weekend.

His own side's 2-0 win over Hertha Berlin would have sufficed to clinch the title with three games to spare had the Westfalians been beaten by Stuttgart.

Instead, Bayern can now wrap up the title by beating Borussia Monchengladbach at the Allianz Arena next weekend, and Guardiola says that is not such a bad thing.

"It's up to us now and we can win the league with one win more with two draws, although I hope we do it against Gladbach next weekend," he said. "Maybe it's not all that bad to clinch the title when we are at home."

Guardiola admitted it had not been a vintage performance from his side, but he nevertheless paid tribute to them for grinding out a win when it was easy to be distracted.

Bayern travel to Atletico Madrid on Wednesday for the first leg of their Champions League semifinal, a game which in view of a seven-point cushion going into Saturday's 31st round of Bundesliga matches meant that it was easy to be distracted.

"I can understand that my players were thinking about Wednesday already," said the Catalan coach at the postmatch news conference.

"That's why I am so happy. It's not easy in this period with a seven-point lead and still in three competitions.

"It's not always easy to give 100 percent when one day you are in the Bundesliga, one day in the Champions League and one day in the DFB Pokal.

"The first half was hard for us and we lost all of the challenges -- all of them. We changed things in the second half and of course the first goal from Arturo [Vidal] was important, and then the incredible goal from Douglas [Costa] made the difference."

Hertha coach Pal Dardai felt Bayern scored a "bit too early" in the second half, and that it was then always going to be difficult to recover.

"The second goal was unstoppable and the game was over at 2-0, but we can build on the way we played next week," he added.

Despite defeat, Berlin can still qualify for the Champions League next season by holding on to fourth place, and Dardai says that is now their aim.

"We've got three finals now and we want to stay where we are," he said. "For that, we need to gather all of our energy."

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