Pellegrini on people who 'interfere' at Real Madrid

Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini says he knew he was going to be sacked by Real Madrid before the club communicated their decision to him. Pellgrini, whose City side face Madrid in the champions League this week, spoke to El Mundo about his brief stay in the Spanish capital. 

"It's an honour to manage Madrid. What happens is when you manage Madrid, you have to have the capacity to accept that the club is not just sporting, it's really political. And to that extreme, you have to let people intefere who, for me, don't have the knowledge of football to do so," Pellegrini said in the interview. 

And referring to Madrid president Florentino Perez, Pellegrini added that "if you let people interfere who don't have football knowledge, it you let yourself be weakened by the criticism that comes from the politicial side, the sporting side or from personal interests, I don't think you're ready. I had the fortune to pass one of the most difficult tests in football and it did not change me at all. I always knew that what the players most appeciated from me was to arrive on Monday and for nothing to have changed whether we had lost or won. I demanded the same from them, the same concepts, independent of what was being said on the exterior. I never played a player because I was advised by someone else, or if I received more or less criticism. Madrid has its model and it won't change." 

In another part of the interview, Pellegrini recognised that "I knew in August that I was going to be sacked because [Perez] told Villarreal's president [Fernando Roig] and he told me."