FCBARCELONA.CAT

13.04.2010 12:31

Guardado: “we’re not the team we were”

Jesús Carrillo/Miquel Agut

In an exclusive interview with Barca TV and fcbarcelona.cat, Deportivo’s Mexican midfielder Andrés Guardado admitted: “we are a long way from being the team we were in the first half of the season, but we’re coming to Barcelona to turn that around.

Lotina’s Deportivo have taken just 1 point from the last 15 and Guardado accepted: “we aren’t doing well and it’s got to all of us, but on Wednesday we will be looking to break the bad run of results we’ve had, put in a performance to make things tough for Barca and maybe take a point home. It’ll be difficult, but not impossible”.

Respect

Guardado knows what Deportivo are up against, commenting: “the Nou Camp is a legendary stadium and we are going to face the best team in the world, but that has to be an extra motivation for our young team”. Guardado will probably be up against Dani Alves and he acknowledged: “he’s one of the worst players to try and mark, he’s constantly getting forward and then getting back, but we have to make sure that he is worried about us too!”

Filipe Luís

Deportivo’s season has undoubtedly been overshadowed by the terrible injury to their Brazilian full back Filipe Luís in January, since when the team have failed to reproduce their early season form and Guardado confessed: “he has been and still is an important absentee for us. He gave us an outlet on the left and losing him is the main reason why we have lost the solidity we had in the first half of the campaign. Our form has suffered and we are also leaving far too much space at the back – it’ll be tough for us to get back to being the team we were”.

Madrid game

Guardado also commented on Saturday’s game at the Bernabeu: “Barca were clearly superior. I thought they won easily and they could have beaten Madrid by an even bigger margin. Barca were on top and Madrid just couldn’t match them”. Finally, Guardado warned: “if Barca are 100% they are unbeatable right now, but we have to be very focussed and able to take advantage of any slip ups they make to get a result “.