Manchester City midfielder Bernardo Silva is today on the front page of newspaper Record.
The 28-year-old was the winner of the Artur Agostinho prize as the Portuguese sports figure who excelled most in 2022, and that also resulted in a seven-page interview with the outlet.
Bernardo Silva had a lot to say about Manchester City and the national team, but the most interesting quotes were certainly those about his future.
With recent rumours about a potential departure from the Citizens, there are some doubts regarding his stay at the club, and that also raises hope about his potential return to Benfica.
Starting with the first issue, Bernardo Silva claims he’s too busy on the current campaign to speak about a departure from Manchester City.
“I’m very focused on this season and it doesn’t make sense to talk about leaving because we’re in the middle of the season. I’ve been at Manchester City for almost six years, I have a lot of respect for the club, news keeps coming out and people know that there have been talks between me and the club and, at the end of the season, we’ll talk again to see what’s best for the two sides. I’m focused on winning more titles for City. We want to win the league again, we have a competition that we have never won and that is a great objective, which is the Champions League, so we want to try again.”
Then asked about the timing of his return to Benfica, as he could wait until the final years of his career, the player made it clear that his plan is still to be in good shape at his youth club.
“If it’s to hang up my boots I’d rather not go. I want to go back to Benfica to help and I have to feel ready. Players, mainly in my position, with my characteristics, play at the highest level at least until the age of 36. We see Modric, who is 37 years old and continues to play for Real Madrid, won the Champions League last year, returned to the semi-finals of the World Cup… We see players like Xavi, like Iniesta, who played very late. There are many examples in these positions, with these characteristics, that manage to hold out for a long time. Now I don’t know how long I’ll be fine. I’m 28 years old, I’ll be 29 in the summer, and I have two more years on my Manchester City contract. My contract would end at 31. I won’t hide that my goal in recent years, if something good happens elsewhere, will probably be to move to a new project. Going into a new project at the age of 29, I’ll only finish this contract probably at 34. If you ask me: what did you think 10 years ago? My goal was to return to Benfica at the age of 32 at the most. What do I think today? It depends on what happens next summer.”
“I’m not going to lie: it’s not something I don’t think about. I think about it every year. It has always been a goal. I couldn’t fulfil my dream of playing for Benfica when I was 19, 20 years old, but I still want to fulfil it. It’s something I think about. When I was about to leave Manchester City two years ago, that would go right, at 32. Now it won’t go right. If I leave, and I don’t know if that will happen, a club that pays what City want for me won’t give me a three-year contract, they will give me a five-year contract. And it’s already 34 years old. Being very realistic: for Bernardo to leave Manchester City for Benfica, or to leave another great European for Benfica, I cannot leave with two or three years on his contract, because Benfica do not have the money to pay these clubs; I have to go free. I’m in a difficult situation that I have to manage, but we’ll see what happens.”
Quizzed if he already spoke to Benfica president Rui Costa about that, Silva said: “We met in the Algarve last summer, at a time when I had two days off and we played around, as many Benfica supporters do with me. It’s too early to talk about it, it doesn’t even make sense”.
