A nice Pep talk: Carli Lloyd says she gets good luck texts from Guardiola at Man City
U.S. women's national team star Carli Lloyd has thoroughly enjoyed her experience at Manchester City, which has been made better by encouraging text messages from Pep Guardiola.
While speaking to SI's Grant Wahl on the Planet Fútbol Podcast, Lloyd described her time with the Manchester City Women, who were just ousted from the UEFA Women's Champions League by Lyon (and U.S. teammate Alex Morgan) after a 3-2 aggregate defeat in the semifinals. Lloyd scored in the second leg, a 1-0 victory for Man City, notching her second goal in Champions League play in defeat while on a short-term deal in England.
Among the exciting experiences with Manchester City, though, has been building a relationship with Guardiola, who is in his first season in charge of Manchester City after a storied managing career at Barcelona and Bayern Munich. Lloyd says Guardiola and a number of Manchester City's men's players live in the same apartment complex, and she recalled meeting him for the first time.
"I ran into Pep the first day I got there ... I grabbed my stuff, went into the elevator, and it's just Pep and I in the elevator," Lloyd said. "He just got off the phone and I thought to myself, 'All right, I'm just going to introduce myself.' So I did, and he's like 'Ohh, you made it, you made it!' He knew all about me, very classy, he asked me how long I'm here for and then we ran into each other again after that and then he got my cell number and was wishing me good luck texting me. It's pretty cool when you've got Pep Guardiola shooting you some good luck messages."
Listen to more stories from Lloyd's time abroad in the full podcast in the interview above and subscribe (and review!) the Planet Fútbol Podcast on iTunes to listen to our weekly in-depth interviews with a wide array of high-profile guests.
