Manchester City’s Quest for European Glory: Reflections on Bernardo Silva’s 2019 Champions League Declaration

The city of Manchester was full of people dressed in blue. Not a drop of rain. Ideal situation to celebrate for hours. You couldn’t walk the streets. He Manchester City had organized the parade of champions through the center of the city to commemorate a season with four titles under the motto “Four-midable”. To the Premier League achieved after a historic face-to-face against Liverpool -which was runner-up with 97 points- was added the FA Cupthe Carabao Cup and the Community Shieldwhich although it is not usually counted as an official title but which gave meaning to the chosen message with four new trophies that season.

At the end of the bus ride through the city, a stage was waiting for the entire Manchester City squad to be speaking in front of his fans. One after another they went up, some taking the microphone, others more embarrassing.

And so he took the stage Bernardo Silvahappy, in his second season with the citizens. And he started: “Next season we will return and we will try to bring you more titles. It has been a long but incredible year, we have won four trophies. We want to do even better, we want European titles too, that’s what we lack. You have to ask us for more. European trophies, we need them. Let’s go get them!“.

four years later, Manchester City has not yet been able to celebrate a European title with its fans. They haven’t been far. In fact they have been very close, they have touched it: they reached the Champions League final in 2021 but lost to Chelsea in Porto. This course, after having eliminated Real Madrid having removed the ghosts of last season, return to another final against Inter.

Meanwhile, Bernardo’s situation is at the same time very similar, but also very different. Similar because he is still as essential as in 2019, when Pep Guardiola He came to say that his lineups would be “Bernardo and 10 more“, irrefutable proof of the role of the Portuguese in the City game. However, it is also very different: he has been wanting to leave the club in the last two summers, as will also happen in 2023, to seek a change of scenery.

It remains to be seen if he will, as he shouted in 2019, celebrating a European title.

Álvaro de Grado is in charge of covering English football information. He was born in Madrid and was a correspondent in Manchester for nine years, where he collaborated with different media, both national

(MARCA, Diario AS, Cadena SER) and international (La Tercera, TUDN, TNT Sports). Currently, along with his work in Relevo, he also comments on Premier League matches on DAZN and covers the Champions League for TNT Sports México. In addition, he is the author of the book “Away Days” from the Panenka Publishing House, has worked as a football scout for StatsBomb and has been part of the communication team of representation agencies.


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