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Manchester City’s irrepressible Portugeezers

Last season raised uncomfortable questions of Manchester City and Pep Guardiola. After reaching the loftiest of heights in England in terms of the aesthetic beauty of their football and unprecedented points totals, it seemed the sky blue orchestra and their Spanish maestro had slipped into decline. Rivals Liverpool romped to the title leaving City a massive 18 points in their wake.

One year on, and the narrative has flipped completely. Guardiola has again concocted a frighteningly good Manchester City team. With one difference compared to past versions. This particular vintage is fuelled by a trio of Portuguese footballers seemingly playing the match of their lives… every week.

Master wordsmith Simon Curtis is a journalist who happens to be a Manchester City expert and a long-time resident in Portugal. The perfect person, therefore, to explain exactly how Bernardo Silva, João Cancelo and Rúben Dias have turned City into very probably the best football team in the world right now. 

 

With the home crowd baying for blood and a heady night of European entertainment well underway, the full house at the Etihad were not to know they were being offered a clear and invigorating image of the future.

It is February 2017 and Manchester City are commencing their annual struggle to prove themselves on the European stage. Having progressed from the group stages, confidence is high that a quarter final berth can be booked by beating French outsiders Monaco. The Monegasques are about to surprise the continent with a brash and talented young squad which will win Ligue Un and reach the semi-finals of the Champions League, however, a fact that means City’s time in the competition is shortly to run to a halt. Unbeknown to the footballing world, a side containing the latent dynamite of Mbappe, Sidibe, Lemar, Bakayoko, Falcao, Fabinho and Benjamin Mendy is about to announce itself.

Before City’s breathless exit, something important happens, however, that will not only shape Monaco’s season but also shape the future of Manchester City and provide a link to the present day. Stationed out on the right wing, Monaco’s ex-Benfica starlet Bernardo Silva produces a first half as beguiling as it is devastating, outshining in the process the esteemed ranks of team-mates mentioned above. Cutting in constantly from his right-wing station, the little Portuguese wreaks complete havoc, completely dominating a City midfield that contains football royalty David Silva, Yaya Toure, Kevin de Bruyne and Leroy Sane. Behind them a certain Nicolas Otamendi is left standing with his legs tied in knots. 

That evening, five years ago, Monaco led twice in an enthralling contest, only to be beaten 5-3 at the breathless end of one of the most outstanding matches in City’s decade of outstanding matches, the magician David Silva gradually clawing back the mantel of man of the match from his upstart namesake. Bernardo, however, had achieved something else, burning the image of his effervescent pressing and sublime left foot onto the cerebral cortex of the watching Pep Guardiola.

That Summer the Catalan’s first holiday move was to jet to the Cote d’Azur, pitch his tent at Juan les Pins and sign up Silva for the crusade.

Fast forward to last Wednesday and City’s almost cruel downsizing of Borussia Monchengladbach in what was nominally the German side’s Champions League round of 16 home leg in Budapest was built on the work of Bernardo Silva, still, five years later, the one player above all others delivering a marriage of most kilometres run with sumptuous possession play and decisive passing. But on this occasion, he was not alone. In fact, City’s three outstanding performers were all Portuguese.

As the club nears the level needed to press on past the hitherto highwater mark in the Champions League of a 2016 semi-final appearance under Manuel Pellegrini, they are being led into the promised land by Silva and his two trusty compatriots João Cancelo and Rúben Dias.

Dias has been a revelation since his early season transfer from Benfica. Having already proved himself a true leader of men at the Luz, Dias has grown into his role shoring up an occasionally rickety City defence with aplomb. If Liverpool fans were over the moon with the effect Virgil van Dijk had on their solidity, turning a good side into a great one last year, City supporters have been equally impressed with the performances of Dias.

Tidy, brave and compact, he has slotted into a new look defence with John Stones that looks as mean as it is watertight. City’s modus operandi under Guardiola has always concentrated on the creative, a raft of gifted ball players who drive possession deep into the opponent’s half and keep it there. When possession breaks down a Bernardo-led high press usually wins it back before any semblance of damage can be visited at the other end.

In previous years, City’s goals for column would be higher, but the goals against would also register incoming damage inflicted. In making the side more compact and less vulnerable at the back, Guardiola has perhaps created a new side capable of reaching the very summit of European football and the man responsible for this new tough appearance is Dias. Constantly jockeying the more relaxed figure of Stones alongside him, he is an arch organizer who does not take slovenliness as an option. The work in possession is crisp and accurate, but equally, when City’s midfield is breached, the positioning, closing down and tackling has been of the highest order too. Invariably the last foot in to block or deflect away from danger has been that of the former Benfica stalwart. Dias is clearly in his element amongst the big hitters of the Premier League, testing himself week in week out against the best strikers the world has to offer.

It cannot be ignored, either, that he is marshalling a defence often comprising three elements who were supposedly surplus to requirements in the summer. John Stones was to be sold. Oleksander Zinchenko was on his way out too. The third part of the quartet is Dias’s compatriot João Cancelo, who was also to be drummed out of Manchester, if you believed the papers. 

But it is to Cancelo that perhaps the most astonishing success story of all belongs, however.

A year ago, the ex-Juventus right back failed to make the cut for the Carabao Cup Final with Aston Villa, missing out on even a squad place on the bench. His omission suggested that there were at least 18 players ahead of him in the coach’s admiration. Rumours had it that he would be on his way out in the summer, a failure amongst so many others, who had made their name and reputation at the Etihad. A drifting start to his career in the Premier League, punctuated by bitty performances and a tendency to go to ground in an exaggerated manner had not won him many new fans in Manchester. The writing, albeit in another language to his own, appeared to be on the wall.

As 2020-21 dawned amid continuing Covid-19 lockdowns and empty grounds, few were they who gave Cancelo much of a chance of regaining ground and playing anything more than a bit part in City’s attempts to pull back ground on last year’s runaway league winners Liverpool. In reality what has transpired in a season of growing majesty for the sky blues has propelled Cancelo to the very front ranks of the Premier League’s in-form men this season.

When pundits began to call the Portuguese “Guardiola’s Phillip Lahm”, it was not by coincidence. Famous for converting the little Bayern full back into an international level midfield schemer, the Catalan appeared to be doing the same to Cancelo. Ostensibly a right back, Cancelo was being asked to not only raid and overlap, Kyle Walker style, down the flank, but to cut in and dictate things in midfield too. This hybrid multifunctional role has catapulted Cancelo into the limelight as City’s season has taken off towards the stratosphere. This unique role involving a freedom of movement and multiplicity of skills harks back to the very core spirit of the Dutch at the 1974 World Cup and the Barcelona that Johan Cruyff built in its image in the mid-90s.

Full backs who veer inside are not a new thing for Guardiola. I was present in August 2016 at the Catalan’s first-ever game in charge of City, against Sunderland at the Etihad, when the unedifying sight of the away side’s massed ranks of defenders had thwarted City until the very end. A late winner obscured the difficulties, but the match had been memorable just to see full backs Bacary Sagna and Gael Clichy marauding through central midfield, even at one critical point, crossing paths to venture to each other’s sides of the pitch. What new skulduggery was at large here? Five years later, it has become a recognized Guardiola ploy, but Cancelo has taken it on further, thanks to his own particular skill set: incredible fitness, great speed off the mark, outstanding versatility, close control and an eye for a chipped ball into the box that has few peers in the league. Allied to this, you can add that classic Guardiola catechism, “great football intelligence”, a nebulous quality that allows some players to simply get it when asked to do out of the box things by gifted managers.

This was confirmed in midweek, when the right back produced two exquisite balls into the penalty area, the first headed in by Bernardo for the opening goal, the next headed back across goal for Gabriel Jesus to net the second. In place of rejection, Cancelo had chosen redemption. Instead of heading out of the Premier League with his tail between his legs, he has risen to the ranks of the high performers and is well on his way to figure in the end of season player awards.

With Dias and Bernardo not far behind in terms of prodigious output, what could be another historic season for a team performing as strongly as any in the world at this moment, is being driven forward by three Portuguese playing the best football of their lives.

by Simon Curtis  

**The epic Monaco match mentioned above and the midweek encounter with Borussia Monchengladbach all feature in the author’s new book tracing the up and down history of Manchester City in Europe, which can be pre-ordered in most good UK book stores and will be on general release later this year.