It’s not only in England that Ruben Dias’ good form for Manchester City is getting big praises.
The sports media in Portugal has also been highlighting his great first months at the Premier League club. By checking local newspapers today, we can find a couple of stories analysing the fast adaptation the defender had to Pep Guardiola’s side.
One of these outlets is O Jogo, who feature a story claiming Dias has now become the ‘wall’ of the Catalan manager.
The newspaper feature all of his positive stats and even made their own analysis to show his best performances are when he plays alongside John Stones in Manchester City’s defence.
They also managed an interview with Helder Cristóvão, who used to be Ruben Dias’ manager at Benfica’s B squad.
“I’m not surprised at all! I’m very happy for him, as we prepared him for this at Benfica. To play dominantly, play 40 meters from goal, make the defensive line, have a leader profile”, said the coach.
Another outlet highlighting Ruben Dias is A Bola. They also managed to interview one of his coaches, this time Rui Vitória, who was the manager who gave the defender his debut for Benfica’s first team.
“I’m not surprised at all this journey that Rúben is taking”, Rui Vitória told A Bola.
“When we started looking at him and working with him, we saw a player who was not yet done, of course, he was already very mature for his age and had something that was and has been decisive in his career, I really believe it’s the magic word that best defines him: focus. He had a very strong focus on his abilities, limitations and aspects to be filed, the path he had to travel and where he wanted to go.”
“It’s this focus that leads to the concentration, commitment, rigour and discipline that a professional player must have. That was a great support for his evolution. He always used every moment of training, every moment of the game to grow in a sustained way.”
