At odds with the eventual 3-0 scoreline, Pep Guardiola insisted Manchester City’s Champions League quarter-final triumph over Bayern Munich was “not comfortable at all”.
“Emotionally, I am destroyed,” the City manager chuckled ruefully. “I have [lost] 10 more years today.”
Nevertheless, there was one player in particular whose display was an undisputed source of joy for the frazzled tactician.
“From my point of view, I was lucky as a manager to have incredible, outstanding players in Barcelona and Bayern Munich,” Guardiola said. “He is one of the best players I have trained in my life, ever. He is something special as a football player. Special.”
The player in question? Erling Haaland scored his 45th goal of the season to seal victory, the biggest all-competition haul in a single campaign in the Premier League era. But Guardiola wasn’t talking about him.
MORE: Man City vs Bayern Munich result, highlights from Champions League
Bernardo Silva didn’t feel like a completely guaranteed starter on the eve of the match, having been on the bench for City’s past two Premier League matches.
He responded to his selection by tormenting Bayern’s star left-back Alphonso Davies, laying on Rodri’s spectacular opening goal, and heading home the game-breaking second from Haaland’s 70th-minute cross.
As the statistics below demonstrate, these key contributions were only part of a little masterpiece — the sort of performance that means Guardiola is willing to consider him in the same bracket as the likes of Lionel Messi, Andres Iniesta and Phillip Lahm.
Bernardo Silva vs Bayern Munich
| Actions | Number | Team rank |
| Goals | 1 | Joint 1st |
| Assists | 1 | Joint 1st |
| Chances created | 3 | Joint 1st (with De Bruyne and Grealish) |
| Passes completed | 28/32 (87.5%) |
2nd |
| Passes completed in opposition half |
23/25 (92%) |
1st |
| Duels | 23 | 1st (Akanji next on 14) |
| Tackles | 8 | 1st |
At times this season, Silva’s versatility has seemed to work to his detriment. He cannot match the creativity of Kevin De Bruyne and Ilkay Gundogan in central midfield or the goal threat of Phil Foden or Riyad Mahrez on the right wing.
But the Portugal international’s all-round techinical skills, combined with his phenomenal industry means he is invaluable as City chase the one major prize to have eluded them in the Guardiola era.
Over the past couple of months, Silva has played in his customary central midfield job, filled in as a hybrid left-back in Guardiola’s shape-shifting side and — as he did against Bayern — reprised the right-wing role where he first caught his manager’s attention as a jewel in the wonderful 2016/17 Monaco side.
That leant some enjoyable symmetry to a night against Bayern where City looked to have finally left their European frailties behind, whether it was the likes of Ruben Dias and Nathan Ake standing firm under pressure in their own box, or the attackers decisively tearing a game in the balance away from Thomas Tuchel’s formidable team.
It was nothing like the helter-skelter mayhem of Guardiola’s first home knockout tie at the Etihad Stadium, a 5-3 win over Monaco in 2017 that preceded a 3-1 loss in the second leg and an exit on away goals. Silva was sensational roaming in from the right and Guardiola was smitten.
Within six months he was a City player and six years later his coach continues to swoon.
MORE: ‘Man City can be unstoppable’ — How Jack Grealish learned to meet Pep’s demands
What is Bernardo Silva’s best position?
“Bernardo’s role is he is a football player,” Guardiola said. What does it mean? He can play everywhere in all positions, even as the left-back coming inside.
“He can play everywhere because he understands the game perfectly in every action, with and without the ball.
“He had [to mark] Davies and Davies, when he starts to go you cannot stop him. Bernardo has the ability to read and be in the positions with the ball and give extra passes. He is quite similar to Riyad with that.
“Bernardo is such an important player, especially in these type of games. He can play there [on the wing], he can play as the holding midfielder, he can play as a false nine at Old Trafford [last season]. We need those type of players and he is so, so important.
“Bernardo is a player who you say ‘okay, you’re going to play in that position’. You don’t have to say anything else. He understands everything.”
This gushing praise and admiration comes against a backdrop of Silva having sought a move away from City in each of the past two summers. It speaks volumes that the 28-year-old has been able to separate these personal wishes from his professional obligations.
Silva continues to shine for City, while his compatriot Joao Cancelo was booed during his late substitute cameo for Bayern against his parent club. A couple of weeks of disruptive grumpiness in January were enough to land a richly gifted full-back in that incongruous situation.
Whatever his personal ambitions for the future, Guardiola knows exactly what he will get from Silva at every turn. For example, a player of his gifts with an uncertain future might baulk and being selected at left-back against Nottingham Forest. Silva simply got on with the job and scored a 25-yard screamer.
He was similarly unrestricted by logic against Bayern, scoring a header from a Haaland cross as opposed to the other way around, before his hulking teammate picked him up and shook him like a rag doll.
“I believe that it doesn’t matter which position you play, everyone attacks and everyone defends, so with different positions you need to defend in different ways,” Silva explained, having sometimes doubled up almost as a secondary right-back alongside Manuel Akanji to thwart former City colleague Leroy Sane. For all their vast talents, that sort of thing is not a comfort zone for Mahrez or Foden.
“Even if you’re a striker or a winger you need to do your work properly to help the team defensively,” Silva added. “I work a lot on that. I worked a lot in my career at the Benfica academy. My managers when I was younger demanded a lot from me defensively, so I am built this way.”
How many trophies will Man City win?
Foden’s return from appendix surgery will be welcomed as City chase glory in the Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League, while Mahrez’s silken first touch and shuffling skills are sure to win a few more games between now and the end of August.
Guardiola is blessed to have such specialists to call upon. Silva, by contrast, is a footballing Swiss army knife, equally adept at retaining possession via a meandering dribble featuring several nutmegs or through expanding and contracting triangles of simple passes.
He can shift City onto the front foot or take the sting out of games when needed, supplying vital in-game knowhow as this Haaland-powered iteration look to finally get over the line in Europe.
“We’ve had a lot of bad experiences in this competition in the past so we need to be ready,” Silva said, with last season’s dramatic semifinal heartbreak against Real Madrid still fresh in his memory. If City finish the job against Bayern they are likely to face a re-run with Carlo Ancelotti’s European kings.
“It’s not over. It’s a good beginning, a good half, but still a long way to go.”
A few more performances of this calibre and Guardiola might even become comfortable in the dugout. But it feels a bit rich to ask Silva for a miracle when he’s already given so much.