Guardiola: My Barcelona players were f***king murderers

May 25, 2012, will be forever engraved in the memory of Barcelona for many reasons, but mostly as they bid farewell to their coach Pep Guardiola.

That year, the Catalan club lifted the Copa del Rey title by defeating Athletic Club, this coming weekend's final opponents.

Guardiola, who is now at Manchester City, reminisced in an interview with TV3 about the generation of players he had at Barcelona and the claim that they went easy on the Basques in the second half after scoring all three goals of the 3-0 win before the break.

"I remember when I went out on the pitch, I saw the tension of the Athletic Club players," he said.

"The Barcelona players, on the other hand, seemed to be playing a friendly match. They were used to it, they knew they were going to win."

"I would tell you with total certainty that it was not like that [going easy in the second half]."

"Marcelo Bielsa's teams are educated in resilience and they never give up and those Barcelona players would score five goals if they could and if they could score eight goals they would."

"They were lovely people, but on the pitch those players were f***ing murderers."

Finally, Guardiola talked to TV3 about his personal feelings the day he said goodbye to Barcelona.

"There was a personal emotional issue in me that was more pronounced than in other finals, but I tried to keep my cool," Guardiola concluded.