Guardiola to take break before City's quest for titles continues

London, March 21 Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola will celebrate reaching a third successive FA Cup semifinal by taking a break from football for a few days at least.

The 2-0 win over Everton, achieved in the last 10 minutes on Saturday thanks to goals from Ilkay Gundogan and substitute Kevin De Bruyne, took City to the last four stage in the competition for the third year in a row for the first time since 1932.

With the international break now kicking in, Guardiola will put aside his near-obsessive addiction to football to take some time off before he begins planning for the next phase in their quest for a quadruple, including the Premier League, FA Cup, League Cup and Champions League titles.

"In this next four or five days, I will not think about football or watch games and then at the end of the first week and the second week we will start preparing for Leicester and (the Champions League quarter-final against) Borussia Dortmund," he said, DPA news reportred.

Guardiola's main concern will be the health of his players as they jet off for matches for their countries.

As they are leaving the strictly-controlled Premier League coronavirus bubble, the Spaniard is keeping his fingers crossed as similar measures are in place with national teams to minimise the risk to the players.

"I hope they can come back and stay safe and well, not just for us but for them. Of course we have had incredible control but people are travelling so we spoke about this and told them to be careful," said Guardiola.

"We are lucky in England that it is the best country, along with the United States, to vaccinate a lot of people and that makes our lives easier. Hopefully the people who go abroad come back safe," he added.

( With inputs from IANS )