{"id":204,"date":"2018-01-08T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-01-08T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/china.chinaacheru.com\/wp\/2018\/01\/08\/pep-guardiola-returns-to-barcelona\/"},"modified":"2025-08-28T14:10:37","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T14:10:37","slug":"pep-guardiola-returns-to-barcelona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinaacheru.com\/staging\/pep-guardiola-returns-to-barcelona\/","title":{"rendered":"\ufeffPep Guardiola returns to Barcelona\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t<\/span>\"Picture\"<\/a><\/span><\/span> <\/p>\n

By PRESS ASSOCIATION REPORTER<\/p>\n

Pep Guardiola will return to Barcelona with Manchester City after his new club were paired with the Catalan giants in the Champions League.
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City’s new manager, who twice won the competition during his illustrious spell in charge at Barca, guided City into the group stage with victory over Steaua Bucharest in the play-off round.
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The two sides were drawn together in Group C alongside Borussia Monchengladbach and Scottish champions Celtic.
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Surprise Premier League winners Leicester came out in Group G at UEFA’s draw with Porto, Bruges and Copenhagen.
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Claudio Ranieri said: ‘It’s good for our fans to come here and for you (the media) – a lot of you are in the Champions League for the first time. It’s a very good experience and gift for everyone here.
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‘It’s a good experience to go around Europe. I hope it’s not just three away games – I hope for a little more.
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‘I don’t know how many (Leicester need to qualify). Sometimes eight or 10 can be good, sometimes not. Slowly, slowly.’
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Arsenal will face Paris St Germain, Basle and Bulgarian side Ludogorets in Group A, with Tottenham playing CSKA Moscow, Bayer Leverkusen and Monaco in Group E.
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The 45-year-old also won La Liga three times in four years at the Barca helm.
But while he will be highly familiar with the club, many of City’s players will also know them well.
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The Spanish champions beat City at the last-16 stage in both 2014 and 2015 while goalkeeper Claudio Bravo has just completed a move from Barca to Guardiola’s new side.
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City also played Monchengladbach in the group stage last year en route to the semi-finals.
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Their fourth opponents, Celtic, reached the group stage via a tortuous qualifying route involving ties against Lincoln Red Imps, Astana and Hapoel Beer Sheva.
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Arsenal are playing in the Champions League for a 19th successive season while Spurs are returning for the first time since the 2010-11 campaign.
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2016\/17 UEFA Champions League group stage draw<\/strong><\/p>\n

Group A: Paris Saint-Germain (FRA), Arsenal (ENG), Basel (SUI), Ludogorets Razgrad (BUL)
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Group B: Benfica (POR), Napoli (ITA), Dynamo Kyiv (UKR), Be\u015fikta\u015f (TUR)
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Group C: Barcelona (ESP), Manchester City (ENG), Borussia M\u00f6nchengladbach (GER), Celtic (SCO)
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Group D: Bayern M\u00fcnchen (GER), Atl\u00e9tico Madrid (ESP), PSV Eindhoven (NED), Rostov (RUS)
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Group E: CSKA Moskva (RUS), Bayer Leverkusen (GER), Tottenham Hotspur (ENG), Monaco (FRA)
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Group F: Real Madrid (ESP, holders), Borussia Dortmund (GER), Sporting CP (POR), Legia Warszawa (POL)
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Group G: Leicester City (ENG), Porto (POR), Club Brugge (BEL), FC K\u00f8benhavn (DEN)
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Group H: Juventus (ITA), Sevilla (ESP), Lyon (FRA), Dinamo Zagreb (CRO)<\/font><\/div>\n

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By PRESS ASSOCIATION REPORTER Pep Guardiola will return to Barcelona with Manchester City after his new club were paired with the Catalan giants in the Champions League.\u00a0City’s new manager, who twice won the competition during his illustrious spell in charge at Barca, guided City into the group stage with victory over Steaua Bucharest in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_surecart_dashboard_logo_width":"180px","_surecart_dashboard_show_logo":true,"_surecart_dashboard_navigation_orders":true,"_surecart_dashboard_navigation_invoices":true,"_surecart_dashboard_navigation_subscriptions":true,"_surecart_dashboard_navigation_downloads":true,"_surecart_dashboard_navigation_billing":true,"_surecart_dashboard_navigation_account":true,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"china","author_link":"https:\/\/chinaacheru.com\/staging\/author\/china\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By PRESS ASSOCIATION REPORTER Pep Guardiola will return to Barcelona with Manchester City after his new club were paired with the Catalan giants in the Champions League.\u00a0City’s new manager, who twice won the competition during his illustrious spell in charge at Barca, guided City into the group stage with victory over Steaua Bucharest in the…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinaacheru.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinaacheru.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinaacheru.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinaacheru.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinaacheru.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chinaacheru.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinaacheru.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinaacheru.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinaacheru.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}