LIVERPOOL, England -- Pep Guardiola is convinced Manchester City can reach the semifinals of the Champions League despite the first leg disaster at Liverpool.
City were blown away at Anfield after first-half goals from Mohamed Salah, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Sadio Mane and need a huge performance to overturn the 3-0 defeat.
Guardiola's former club Barcelona came back from a 4-0 deficit against Paris Saint-Germain last season and City need a similarly outstanding result if they are to reach the last-four for the second time in club history.
"In this room, I think there is nobody except the guy talking to you who believes we can go through," Guardiola told a news conference. "There are 90 minutes more, we are going to try.
"In football it can happen. We have 90 minutes more in our stadium, with our people, with our families. I believe a lot in my team. They've shown me many good things in the season.
"The result is so tough, you cannot deny it. Today you are talking about Real Madrid going through, Barcelona going through, Bayern Munich going through and Liverpool going through.
"But we have 90 minutes all of us -- Sevilla, Juventus and us. We are going to try. It is so complicated because we are going to play a top, top team. We have the permission to believe it."
Guardiola left out Raheem Sterling for the first leg with the former Liverpool forward struggling on his two previous returns to Anfield.
The City boss brought in Ilkay Gundogan as an extra midfielder and he admitted the decision didn't work out.
"We wanted more passes, more control," he said. "Gundo is very good arriving in the second line in the boxes. And we wanted to have more control of the midfield players.
"Did it work? We lost 3-0."
Guardiola insisted the incident before the game where the team bus was attacked by bottles and flares did not affect his team.
But the Catalan was confused that the fans were allowed to behave the way they did with the coach greeting widely publicised among Liverpool fans and coming just after Borussia Dortmund's coach was bombed last season.
"Yesterday you explained about that, it is going to happen, and it happened. I didn't expect that. I am new here," he added.
"Normally when the police know that is going to happen, they try to avoid it happening. I did not expect that from the Liverpool side, from the people.
"One year ago, something happened in Dortmund. We come here to play football and I don't understand this kind of situation.
"Nothing happened, the bus is destroyed. I didn't expect that a club as prestigious as Liverpool would do these kinds of things. Of course, it is not Liverpool, it is the people -- it was not only one, only two, only three.
"Hopefully it doesn't happen again."