Riyad Mahrez had planned his Manchester City penalty vs Borussia Dortmund for the last month. Mahrez became City’s sixth penalty taker of the season, and speaking after the game he revealed that he had told teammates he would take their next penalty ever since their last penalty – when Sergio Aguero scored at Fulham a month ago.
Riyad Mahrez said: “I wanted to take the next one, that next one is today so I took it. Don’t know who took the last one I don’t remember. When the penalty arrives I knew it was me, everyone knew I was going to take it. I took the responsibility and is good for the team.”
On the penalty,
Pep Guardiola said: “He chose [to take it]. The guy had personality to take it and he made an incredible penalty. A real good one.”
Riyad Mahrez said: “His goal is good, we train it the day before in training. We know when we play short Phil was there, very good shot, it’s in. It was a good game, open game. Don’t think we start very good. We came back after the goal, played good, created chances. At the end we had the opportunity to score and we did it. At half time we said just keep going, we played after the goal we concede, we have time, we knew we were going to score. At half time we were very confident about the second half. We could have scored more in the first half, their defender saved it, Kevin had one or two. We was very confident and that’s why we’re through. PSG is a very good team, with very good players. Let’s focus on our next game against Chelsea and we’ll have time to talk about the Champions League.”