Napoli manager Luciano Spalletti has apologised to Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola.

Guardiola hailed Napoli as “the best team in Europe” after they marched into the quarter-finals of the Champions League with a 5-0 aggregate over Eintracht Frankfurt.

However, Spalletti was not too pleased with the praise and looked at it as a ploy to “knock Napoli down”.

Manchester City boss Guardiola then called Spalletti “sensitive” and described the Italian manager as “grumpy”.

Spalletti was asked to respond to Guardiola again ahead of Napoli’s quarter-final clash with Milan, and the manager chose to apologise for his previous comments.

“I learned a lot from Guardiola. Everyone has learnt something from Guardiola. For me, Guardiola is like [Jurgen] Klopp, [Roberto] De Zerbi, all the amazing managers,” he told reporters.

“Guardiola, Klopp and De Zerbi are among the football managers I always look at. So if my expression was misunderstood by Guardiola, I’m sorry because I’m truly happy when a manager like him says good words about Napoli. It would take me days and days to appreciate Guardiola’s former Barcelona.”