{"id":86851,"date":"2023-07-27T02:36:40","date_gmt":"2023-07-27T02:36:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2023\/07\/27\/i-didnt-know-anything-about-football\/"},"modified":"2023-07-27T02:36:40","modified_gmt":"2023-07-27T02:36:40","slug":"i-didnt-know-anything-about-football","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2023\/07\/27\/i-didnt-know-anything-about-football\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;I Didn&#8217;t Know Anything About Football&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>P<strong>ep Guardiola and Ilkay Gundogan<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Ilkay G\u00fcndogan has told ESPN he \u201cdidn\u2019t know anything about football\u201d before working with Pep Guardiola, while also praising new boss Xavi Hern\u00e1ndez as \u201camazing\u201d and his Barcelona team as having \u201chuge potential.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>G\u00fcndogan, 32, left Guardiola\u2019s Manchester City for Barca this month on a free transfer after seven seasons in the Premier League.<\/p>\n<p>He won five league titles, two FA Cups, four League Cups and the Champions League during his time in Manchester, culminating in last season\u2019s historic treble.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBefore I joined Man City, I thought I knew football,\u201d G\u00fcndogan told ESPN on Monday. \u201cI was 25 or 26 years old, I\u2019d seen a lot. I\u2019d played a Champions League final. But now standing here after seven years of Pep\u2019s school, I\u2019d say I didn\u2019t know anything about football before. His influence on the team and me personally was immense.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>G\u00fcndogan described last season\u2019s triumph as \u201cdreamland\u201d but said it was the right time to move, arguing that \u201cif I want to challenge myself and get out of my comfort zone, this is the time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Germany international added: \u201cSince I was a child I just adored Barcelona. With players like Ronaldinho and [Lionel] Messi, and then [Sergio] Busquets, [Andres] Iniesta, Xavi\u2026 I always said to myself that when I got the opportunity one day, I didn\u2019t want to miss out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Barca won LaLiga last season in Xavi\u2019s first full campaign in charge, finishing 10 points ahead of rivals Real Madrid to claim their first league title since 2019.<\/p>\n<p><!-- AI CONTENT END 2 -->\n\t<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pep Guardiola and Ilkay Gundogan \u00a0 Ilkay G\u00fcndogan has told ESPN he \u201cdidn\u2019t know anything about football\u201d before working with Pep Guardiola, while also praising new boss Xavi Hern\u00e1ndez as \u201camazing\u201d and his Barcelona team as having \u201chuge potential.\u201d G\u00fcndogan, 32, left Guardiola\u2019s Manchester City for Barca this month on a free transfer after seven [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":86852,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.2 - 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