Goals from Kevin de Bruyne and Phil Foden secured a vital first leg victory for Manchester City as Pep Guardiola's men took a big step towards reaching the semi finals of the Champions League for the first time under the Spaniard's leadership.

City have only reached the last four of the rebranded competition once before, in Manuel Pellegrini's final season as manager back in the 2015/16 season. Marco Reus' late leveller looked to have spoiled the evening after de Bruyne opened the scoring, but Foden was on hand to guide the ball home in the 90th minute after being perfectly set up by ex-BVB man, Ilkay Gundogan. Here's what Guardiola had to say after the game.

  • How will City approach the second leg?

City only need to avoid defeat when the two sides meet again, but Guardiola says his team won't play to those means.

"It's better to win than draw. We are going there to win the game," he told BT Sport at full time. "In the first half we were not clever with the ball. The second half was much better.

"Borussia Dortmund is a typical club from the Champions League. We have one more game there and with the result 2-1, we will try to score the goals there to win.

"They know us and we know them, so we are going to analyse what we have to do like we have done for four or five months. Every game we play to win, so we will go there to win the game. I ask the players to win the game. We did it and now we go to Dortmund not to defend.

“We will adjust our pressing, adjust our build up and play 90 minutes to try and reach the semi-final.”

  • Was he happy with the performance?

“The second half was better [than the first].” said Guardiola. "The first half, we were not clever with the ball. The passes were not good for our teammates.

“When you win 26 games in 27 and they [Dortmund] are not winning the Bundesliga, the pressure is on our shoulders. Everything is guaranteed for us. Everybody believed we would win.

“We had an incredible commitment and desire to go through. I want to congratulate the players on a real match in the Champions League. How they stick together, from the quality of the opponent, how we fought until the end."

"In the first half, they only had one chance through [Erling] Haaland and we created many, but we needed to do better. We will watch the game in a calm way, the best way possible, and see what we can do better." 

  • Did bringing on Jesus improve the team?

Guardiola brought Gabriel Jesus on in the second half as his team searched for a second goal and, despite Foden scoring the winner, the Brazilian clearly had an effect on the performance.

"To play good in the areas we want, we need to play a good build up and it was not good.

"Today, Joao [Cancelo] and Rodri were not clever to receive the ball in the positions to connect with the other ones, but that is normal against an opponent of good quality.  

  • Bellingham's disallowed goal

English prodigy Jude Bellingham won the ball off City goalkeeper Ederson and rolled the ball into the empty net, but the referee blew for a foul despite Bellingham winning the ball cleanly.

Had the referee waited for the ball to be in the net and then blow his whistle, VAR could have reviewed the situation. This caused a lot of controversy, but Guardiola preferred not to speak about it after the match.

"Listen, it is better to not talk about referees in the Champions League, in this season or any season. 

"I'm not going to speak in that time [in the past] and I'm not going to speak now. We have a huge list about these kind of things in this competition, so that's why it is better to say no comment.

"Bellingham's leg was higher than expected, the referee decided his decision, and that's all. The referees were brilliant, they were not influenced like in the past, they were perfect."