There will be no U-turn, no last-minute change of heart. Bernardo Silva has heard the rumours that he might once more be talked into staying at Manchester City, but this time his mind is set.
In a suite at the club’s training ground, the City captain sits down with The Athletic to reflect on nine glorious years in Manchester — 457 appearances, winning the Premier League six times, the FA Cup twice, the League Cup five times, the UEFA Champions League and Club World Cup — and all that is at stake, another FA Cup final and the final week of another nail-biting title race, before he departs.
It is a wide-ranging chat, based around a series of images we show him. He talks about highlights, crushing disappointments and the pain of losing a close friend; about team-mates, opponents and a “genius” coach, Pep Guardiola, who will be the toughest act to follow when he leaves City; about a tunnel bust-up with Manchester United, giving Liverpool’s champions the cold shoulder and why it was about time Arsenal “began to man up”; about his own game, on-pitch intelligence and why he feels an increased focus on set pieces — and match officials’ struggle to police them — has at times made this Premier League season a turn-off.
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Bernardo, 31, will leave City with a heavy heart, as well as enough memories to last a lifetime, but he has had time to get used to the idea. He came close to leaving in both 2021 and 2022, when there was interest from leading clubs in Spain and Italy, and there was a huge offer from Saudi Arabia in 2023. Even when he signed a three-year contract extension in 2023, he imagined it would be his last before he left for sunnier climes and a different challenge.
“Basically, in my third season here (2019-20), when Covid hit, I wasn’t very happy with my personal life,” he explains. “I was alone. Then, luckily enough, I met my wife and my life started getting better on a personal level. It had nothing to do with the city or the football club — I love this football club — but yeah, it was a time where I explored other options and I thought about it (leaving).”
Is it true that Guardiola, who has often talked of the importance of letting unsettled players leave, begged him to stay on those occasions — and has tried again this time, despite the uncertainty over the coach’s own future? “Yeah, Pep was one of the biggest reasons that I stayed. They never allowed me to leave,” he laughs.
“But I’m really happy it didn’t happen then because I would have missed out on the treble (in 2023), winning four (Premier League titles) in a row and a lot of fantastic things. After we won the Champions League (in 2023) I signed a new deal to stay another three seasons. From then, really, my goal was always to fulfil that contract until the end.”
We will come back to the future. But first we go back to his early days in Manchester, after his £43million ($55.9m) transfer from Monaco, and a rude awakening.
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The image above is Bernardo being sent head over heels by a challenge from Dan Gosling at Bournemouth in August 2017, his first Premier League start and one of just four he started in the first half of that campaign.
At that point, some wondered whether, at 5ft 8in and barely 10 stone, he was cut out for the rigours of English football. Across town, Jose Mourinho had been buying big, powerful players (Eric Bailly, Victor Lindelof, Nemanja Matic, Romelu Lukaku) to build his Manchester United team around. In terms of average height, City’s team, with Bernardo, David Silva, Raheem Sterling and others, was the smallest in the Premier League.
“To be honest, no, I didn’t find it a shock,” Bernardo says. “The Premier League is the most physical in the world, but the context matters; playing in the Premier League for Man City is different to playing Premier League for a different club.”
How so? “The way we play at Man City is so technical,” he says. “I actually find it easier to play here than I did in France. I know that sounds weird, but the way the team plays, the game becomes a bit less physical and more technical.”
There is another image of Bernardo arriving at Manchester airport in July 2017, pushing his luggage trolley out of the terminal. He is wearing pink shorts and the unmistakable look of someone who, after boarding a two-and-a-half-hour flight in the sunshine, finds himself wondering why it is so cold in Manchester.
“Oof,” he says. “They lied to me. I don’t mean the club lied to me, but the city of Manchester lied to me,” he says. “When I came here to sign in May, it was very sunny. Then when I came for pre-season, I came direct from Ibiza, wearing pink shorts, and then I realised, ‘Wow, it’s really cold — even in July’. I think it was raining as well.”
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This is Bernardo’s first Manchester derby, a 2-1 City win at Old Trafford in December 2017. The image is of a smoke bomb thrown as he prepares to take a corner — “It happens a lot in Portugal, but not so much in England,” he says — but that game is best remembered for a post-match flare-up between both sets of players.
“Yeah, I remember that,” he says, smirking.
So what happened? “Well, it was a big win,” he says. “We were first in the league and Man United were second. We won the game, which increased the gap, and I was in the tunnel, speaking with Lindelof, who played with me at Benfica.
“Our players were celebrating in our dressing room, which was right next to theirs. They weren’t very happy about it (the celebrations). Mourinho didn’t look very happy and then there was the usual stuff in football: one starts shouting, the other one starts shouting, pushing, out of nowhere, and from there things escalate in a stupid way.”
It was widely reported at the time that someone threw a plastic bottle at Mourinho while Mikel Arteta, then City’s assistant coach, suffered a cut to the head in a fracas. “I know who threw a bottle,” Bernardo says. “It’s a big mistake and it’s stupid.”
Go on. It has been nearly nine years. “No, I’m not going to say it,” he says with a smile. “To be fair, nothing really happened. But what happened afterwards was that they changed the (location of) the away dressing room at Old Trafford — and maybe because of this.”
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(Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)
“Ah, the centurions,” he says.
Bernardo and his team-mates are celebrating at the end of their title-winning 2017-18 campaign. A stoppage-time strike from Gabriel Jesus at Southampton made City the first team in English football history to win 100 points in a top-flight season.
“The game didn’t mean a lot because we were already champions, but we really wanted that record,” he says. “To be the only team that got 100 points is really nice.”
Does he believe the “centurions” season — and the football they played — got the credit it deserved? “From our fans, for sure,” he says.
But more widely? Winning 100 points (32 wins, four draws, two defeats, 106 goals scored) seems not to resonate with the wider football public the way, for example, Arsenal’s “Invincibles” campaign of 2003-04 (26 wins, 12 draws, no defeats, 90 points, 73 goals scored) does.
“In future, I think people will look back and think that this (City) generation was … if not the best, then one of the best in the history of English football,” he says. “It’s really difficult to compare eras, but when you consider the quality of the Premier League and how every club now can go to other leagues and get the best players from all over the world, … I know I’m biased, but it’s difficult not to put this team as one of the best that ever played in this country.”
Might lack of appreciation come from a resentment towards City, whether to do with their success generally or the ownership — and the as-yet-unresolved commission hearing into allegations that the club breached Premier League financial regulations more than 100 times between 2009 and 2018 — specifically?
“It doesn’t matter if it’s Manchester City,” he says. “People don’t like winners because, in a league of 20 teams, one team wins and the other 19 don’t. The 19 is a lot more than the one, so that’s normal. That’s part of the game.”
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“And the other issues you talk about (over 100 charges, which the club denies) hopefully will come to an end soon. I do believe a lot of people take advantage of that, to take some credit off what we do on the pitch. But that’s sport. That’s the way people react when they don’t win.”
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“That was a very special moment,” Bernardo says, looking at the image of his team-mate John Stones at full stretch to clear the ball off the line as City beat Liverpool 2-1 in a top-of-the-table clash in January 2019.
The Premier League’s goal-line technology indicated that the ball had come within 11 millimetres of crossing the line, the defining moment of a season in which the two teams pushed themselves and each other to the limit, City securing the title on the final day of the campaign with 98 points to Liverpool’s 97.
“Small margins can make such a difference,” he says. “We won that title by one point, maybe because of this clearance. There was also the year when Stefan Ortega made the massive save against Tottenham (in May 2024), a small margin again. In the Champions League the small margins always went against us for a long time. Sometimes you’re lucky, Sometimes you’re unlucky. But that (the Stones clearance) was a truly special moment.”
Bernardo was tracked as having covered 13.7km that night, a record unsurpassed by any Premier League player that season or indeed this season. “It was an incredible game, one of the most intense games I played, for sure,” he says. “Both teams were at the peak of their powers. We won all the domestic trophies that season and Liverpool won the Champions League. It was a special rivalry and a special game, a very important one for us.”
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“Oh yeah,” he laughs. “The famous one. It’s a fun picture.”
Bernardo doesn’t look like he’s having fun. City’s players have formed a guard of honour for newly crowned champions Liverpool in July 2020. His team-mates are clapping, but Bernardo appears to have taken precautions — a coffee cup in one hand, a water bottle in the other — to ensure he cannot join the applause. City’s supporters appreciated that snub so much the image appeared this week on a banner made in his honour.
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“I’m a really bad loser,” he says. “I’m really competitive. But I do have a lot of respect for our rivalry. They made us better. We made them better for sure. When you’re living this kind of rivalry, you can’t like each other. They have to hate us. We have to hate them. That’s totally normal.”
As will become clear when we reach the subject of City’s rivals for this season’s Premier League title…
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It’s an image of Bernardo on the ball. The game is irrelevant. It could be any moment in any game. He is always moving, always thinking. So what, in a typical moment, is going through his mind?
“I know that for people who aren’t football players, who don’t work every day on the tactical side of the game, the small details don’t really matter,” he says. “They want to see the flair, the magic, and I like that as well. When I was a kid, my idol was Ronaldinho because of that.
“But I really enjoy the process of doing things well. Doing things well means every little detail is really important. Each of us has our role in the team. If you respect your role, do the little things to the best of your abilities and everyone does a bit of that, and you don’t ‘overdo’, you will have a successful team.”
Guardiola calls him a “master”, “one of the cleverest players I ever met”. Does Bernardo recognise that his intelligence, perhaps some kind of spatial awareness, elevates him beyond “ordinary” players?
“I think I’m an intuitive player,” he says. “Football will always have a tactical side, which is really important, but the intuition and the feeling will always be the most important things in the game. And no matter what Pep tells me, I always follow my heart and my feeling on the game. I feel that’s the right thing to do. That’s the way I play the game.”
Perhaps the difference is that Bernardo “feels” the tactical side of the game in a way most others do not; he often seems to be two or three steps ahead of the play, whereas others, even at elite level, can often seem to be one step behind.
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It isn’t the type of quality that tends to win individual awards. His name was conspicuous by its absence on Thursday when the Premier League announced the eight nominees for player of the season award. Was he surprised? “No,” he says. “These awards mainly go to the guys with the best stats for assists and goals. I have no problem with that.”
Who got his vote for the Professional Footballers’ Association Player of the Year award? “My friend Bruno (Fernandes, the Manchester United captain),” he says. “He’s had an incredible season.”
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“This is the Real Madrid game,” he says, recognising the picture of his goal celebration in the Champions League semi-final second leg in May 2023. “If I could choose one game, one moment, to experience again… The stadium was on fire, the atmosphere was fantastic. For me personally, this game was maybe the best memories I have at the club.
“The way we started the game, the way we attacked them, they couldn’t make three or four passes. To create that feeling in a team like Real Madrid, the kings of Europe at the time, to do that to that team and to win 4-0 at home, it was an incredible night for us.”
(Marco Bertorello/AFP via Getty Images)
“This is obviously a few weeks later after we won the final,” he says. “This was finally achieving the dream we had waited for so long, with so many frustrations. Along with the World Cup, winning the Champions League is the top of the tower.”
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Again the match in question is irrelevant. The picture is all about the bond between coach and player. Guardiola has described Bernardo as “my weakness, my favourite one”. The admiration is mutual.
“The way he helped me, supported me and believed in me — even in my first six months when I didn’t play that much — was special coming from such a manager,” Bernardo says.
“Then with the experiences we had together — the frustrations, the happiness of winning things, the sadness of losing some — we built this personal relationship where I know he really likes me. I’m really grateful for everything that he did for me.”
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How would he describe Guardiola? A visionary? A genius? “For sure,” he says. “He never stops thinking about the game. Even when we have a very successful season, he’s always finding new ways so that teams can’t adapt to us. In terms of offensive concepts, I would say he’s by far the best manager I’ve seen. I don’t think there is anyone better.”
What does he say to those who describe Guardiola’s football — goals galore and trophies galore with players such as Xavi Hernandez, Andres Iniesta and Lionel Messi at Barcelona, Thiago Alcantara, Franck Ribery and Arjen Robben at Bayern Munich, David Silva, Kevin De Bruyne, Bernardo and now Rayan Cherki at City — as boring?
“I think it’s the opposite,” he says. “We always go at teams. We never choose to sit at the back. The boring games we have are because the opponents sit at the back. When they play 11 players behind the ball, then it becomes a game of patience. But if you look at the games where teams come at us and play man to man, the games are usually open and crazy.”
Whether it is next week, next year or 10 years from now, at some point — it seems sooner rather than later — Guardiola will leave City. How hard will it be to replace him when that day comes? “Very hard,” he says. “I do believe the way the club is run, it will still be very successful. But you cannot deny Pep is one of the main reasons, if not the main reason, for our success in the last nine years.”
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So what’s going on here? It’s a confrontation with Arsenal defender Gabriel during a tempestuous 2-2 draw at the Etihad Stadium in September 2024. Bernardo is making a small circle with his fingers. Did that gesture mean “zero” or something else?
“Yeah, it’s a zero,” he says, smiling.
What does the zero indicate? “Premier League titles,” he says. “Maybe it changes this year… But these provocations, these things on the pitch, it’s part of the game. Both teams want to win. I wouldn’t give too much importance to this.”
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Under Arteta, Arsenal have emerged as a serious force, finishing second behind City in 2023 and 2024 and behind Liverpool last year, and with just two games to play they are on course to secure the club’s first Premier League title in 22 years.
“Yeah,” Bernardo says matter-of-factly. “They’ve been growing and… well, it’s a team that has been together for, what, five years now, so it’s only natural that they would man up a little bit and start challenging for titles, so, yeah, let’s see what happens.”
Ouch. It doesn’t sound like he is in love with Arsenal. “No, I’m not in love,” he says. “I do believe our main rivals (in his time at City) were Liverpool by far. I also believe — and I know this is very subjective — that if we were not in a transitional season and if we didn’t make so many mistakes, we would have won this league. I don’t say we would have won easily, but we would have won this league. So it’s quite frustrating.”
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This leads us on to an image of last weekend’s controversy at the London Stadium, where Arsenal appeared to have conceded a stoppage-time equaliser to West Ham United, only for a lengthy VAR check to result in referee Chris Kavanagh being sent to the pitchside monitor and disallowing the goal for a foul on goalkeeper David Raya.
“I think it’s a foul,” Bernado says with a shrug. “The only problem is the consistency of the referees. It’s not just this (the foul by Pablo on Raya). It’s everything that happens around, so in this picture you see three or four fouls taking place. It’s a foul (on Raya), but it’s quite frustrating when they allow this type of contact at times during the season and then they decide not to allow it in such a game.
“It’s a shame. The Premier League is such a good product in terms of the referees letting the game flow and not whistling every challenge. All of this helps to make it the best league in the world in my opinion. But then on the other hand, you look at what has been happening with set pieces in the last two seasons and it’s a bit of a shame to see teams taking one minute over throw-ins, free kicks, goal kicks, corners… I wouldn’t say that’s the way the game should be going.”
We are talking the day after City beat Crystal Palace to move back within two points of Arsenal with two games to play. Bernardo has been in tight title races before — three of the six Premier League titles he has won with City have gone down to the final day — but not in a position like this, going into the final week of the campaign needing City’s opponents to slip up.
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“It’s out of our control,” he says “There’s no point thinking too much about that when you’re not in control of things. You try to control what you can control. We have to win our games.”
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On seeing this image, Bernardo’s expression changes. He has smiled and laughed through much of the interview, but now there is sadness.
It’s the picture he posted on social media upon hearing that his Portugal team-mate Diogo Jota had been killed along with his brother Andre Silva in a car crash last July.
“Diogo was a very good friend of mine,” he says of his former Liverpool adversary. “I was travelling back from the Club World Cup and then, when I landed, I heard the news. It was so difficult to accept — not only Diogo but his brother. I was friends with the family. It’s just difficult.”
Bernardo and his City team-mate Ruben Dias travelled to Jota’s home town of Gondomar, near Porto, to attend the funeral. Ten months later, what happened still doesn’t feel real.
“I remember him every day,” he says, “especially when I’m with the national team. Every moment we have together in the national team — lunches, dinners, playing pool, playing cards — he’s always in our minds. It’s difficult playing cards and not seeing him because he was always there laughing with us. With the World Cup, we want to do it (win) for the Portuguese people. We will also want to keep Diogo’s memory very present. Every time we are together, we will remember him for sure.”
So what is Bernardo Silva’s next challenge?
“Finding something where I still feel competitive, where I can play at the highest level, which I still want to do, and where my family is happy,” he says. “That’s a very important part of my life. My daughter is turning three and my wife is pregnant again, so in October we’re going to have a second child. I have an idea and my preference (for his next club), but we’ll see what happens.”
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Would Barcelona be a likely destination? “I don’t want to talk about names,” he says. “I genuinely don’t know where I’m going to be. I just really want to enjoy and focus on my last games here. I told my agent I will speak to him on the 25th, the day after that Aston Villa game.”
The immediate focus is on the FA Cup final against Chelsea on Saturday. “We know how tough the challenge is,” he says. “Chelsea haven’t been in a very good moment, but finals are finals. When we played the Carabao Cup final, everyone said Arsenal were favourites and I kept saying, ‘That’s not important. A final is one game, 90 minutes, and anything can happen’. If you look at Chelsea, you can’t deny they have fantastic players. On a good day, they’re very difficult to beat, so we expect a very tough game. But we’re also expecting our players to show up and to deliver.
“The nine years have been amazing. It would be lovely to finish with a couple more titles. I want to end on a good note.”