Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola says they'll be wary of Sevilla's European know-how this week.
City meet Sevilla in the UEFA Super Cup at the Karaiskakis Stadium in Piraes, Greece on Wednesday night.
I know (Sevilla coach Jose Luis) Mendilibar from my time at Barcelona," he said. He turned things around at Sevilla in no time.
They had a tough final against Roma; matches against [Jose] Mourinho are always challenging and difficult. I know that from personal experience.
When you see a Mendilibar team play, you can recognise his influence, you can immediately tell it's his team: they get forward quickly, they make quick use of the wings, they put in a lot of crosses, they get into the box well, they are aggressive and are immediately on it. In fact, under him, they eliminated Man United and [beat] Roma in the final.
He produced some great performances in the knockout stage. Just as we say Real Madrid are [usually] the favourites to win the Champions League, Sevilla are the favourites in the Europa League.
I tip my hat off for what this club has done in this competition it's incredible. They know how to perform in European competitions, and it will be a good [UEFA Super Cup] final."
Guardiola also said: "When we arrived seven years ago, people said that we had to win [titles] at Manchester City probably because of my past [success] at other teams but I didn't have that feeling," the boss added.
After winning four or five Premier Leagues, everybody started to say that if we didn't win the Champions League, it wouldn't be a complete success.
We could accept that reality, but that was because of the previous five Premier League titles we had won. We had reached a final where we didn't really perform, then reached a couple of semi-finals.
We could feel that we were really close. However, we always spoke about it: it wasn't about reaching this final and then not showing up.
The most important thing is that we have been there or thereabouts for a long time, and when you consistently get there over a long period, you'll win eventually."