Bernardo Silva: “Pep Guardiola has changed the way I see the game.”

Ahead of Manchester City’s Champions League semi-final second leg against Real Madrid tonight, Bernardo Silva has given a wide-ranging interview to France Football.

The Portuguese winger/midfielder notably claims that he found it more difficult to play in France than in England – with reports linking him with a return to Ligue 1, as Paris Saint-Germain’s first choice to replace Lionel Messi, emerging shortly afterwards.

In the interview, he also discusses the impact that Pep Guardiola has had on his play, having now worked with the Catalan for the last 6 seasons after his move from Monaco in 2017. Silva is full of praise for the former Barcelona and Bayern Munich boss, who is now closing in on a fifth Premier League title with Manchester City – and potentially long-awaited success on the European stage, although they will need to get past the holders tonight first, with the aggregate score at 1-1 going into the match.

“He’s the manager who I’ve worked the longest with during my career, and he’s a really special coach in his way of seeing football and in his way of always changing things. He’s always thinking. When you win three titles in a season, you might assume that the following season you’ll be playing the same way, but no – he keeps changing things so that the other teams never now how we’re going to develop our style of play. So nobody gets used to how we play. And since he’s changing all the time, every year you learn. He has really changed the way I see the game.”

“[It was difficult] at the start, but after one or two seasons you get what he wants. The foundations are there. Every player who’s been with him for more than one season will understand. Sometimes, he gets to training and he’s calm. He lets us train. Another time, he showed up and killed us: You are tired? I don’t care, you need to run and work hard. He asks a lot from us. During games, but also during training. Everyone needs to be concentrated, and if he feels you’re not at 100%, you’re not going to play.”

[The hardest thing] is that he goes into a lot of detail. So you change the way you approach your style of play. Back at Monaco, I was more of a dribbler than I am now. So was Riyad [Mahrez] at Leicester. We all play in a more simple way. Obviously you need to know how to dribble and shoot, but being able to play in a simple way, for Pep, is the most important thing. If you want playing time under him, you need to be able to do that. One touch, two touches. You play for the team, otherwise you’re not playing.”