Pep Guardiola admits he 'cannot believe' how good Jude Bellingham is

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has waxed lyrical about Borussia Dortmund midfielder Jude Bellingham, joking that it shouldn't be possible for a 17-year-old to be so good.

City fought off Bellingham's Dortmund side in the Champions League quarter-final, but the teenager made his presence known with two excellent performances. He had a goal wrongly disallowed in the first leg before bagging Dortmund's only goal in the return fixture.

His latest appearance made him just the second player to hit ten games in Europe's premier competition before turning 18, and after the match, Guardiola confessed he was lost for words when watching Bellingham.

"Maybe he’s a liar!” Guardiola joked (via The Independent) when asked about Bellingham's ability as a 17-year-old. “He’s so good for 17 years old, I cannot believe it. He’s a fantastic player.

“There was one moment when he didn’t get the ball from central defenders, how he shouts and demands that ball to him at 17 means a lot.

“I spoke with his manager, Edin [Terzic], and he told me what you see in these two games is like every training session. They have a huge talent.”

While Bellingham's potential was never in doubt, he did face plenty of concerns last summer from fans who felt he was not ready to play for Dortmund, given he had just one year of Championship football with Birmingham City under his belt.

It's safe to say that Bellingham has proved his doubters wrong, and in an interview with BT Sport, he was eager to remind those critics just how far he has come.

"Not bad for a Championship player, eh?" he joked. "I think I've taken every game in my stride, I had a bit of a tough start away at Lazio and then since then I think all of my best performances in BVB colours have come in the Champions League, including tonight.

"For me it's brilliant to play in this competition and for this club, it's a huge honour, so I can take a little bit away from that and learn from it but I'm still gutted we didn't make it through.'

Dortmund boss Terzic added: “The only thing that we don’t know about Jude is his limit. He has so much potential, so much talent, and he’s a great, great boy who wants to improve. This is the thing we have to find out, where is the limit, and we are going to try and push him to the limit. Tonight the whole world saw what he can do.”