Bernardo Silva believes Manchester City’s attempt to claim a historic second consecutive treble and become arguably the greatest club team of all time is “an inspiration”, with the team a possible 12 matches from achieving the feat.
City face Real Madrid in Wednesday’s Champions League quarter-final second leg with the tie poised at 3-3 after last week’s match at the Bernabéu. City lead the Premier League by two points from Arsenal and Liverpool with six games left of the campaign. On Saturday they play Chelsea at Wembley in their FA Cup semi-final.
Silva was asked if the chance to become the greatest ever side by winning a second treble in successive years can inspire them. “Of course – [it is] obviously an inspiration and motivation,” the midfielder said. “We know how well this team has done and we want to create that legacy and to do another Premier League to do six in seven years and four in a row. And we want to win the Champions League to do two in a row that only Madrid [who] did three in a row have done but no one else won four consecutive Premier Leagues.”
He added: “And if we win two trebles in a row that would be legacy [but] in one week we could be out of all the competitions but we are fighting for it.”
In last season’s semi-final first leg City drew 1-1 in Madrid before two goals from Silva set them on the way to routing Carlo Ancelotti’s team 4-0 at the Etihad in the return, a display Guardiola described as the highest point of his tenure considering the opponents were the record 14-times winners of the competition. The Catalan, a former Barcelona captain and coach, was asked if he is scared of Real.
“No, I don’t fear them,” he said. “I respect them a lot, I’ve faced them many times. I’m not going to talk great things about them, but to give you my opinion, I respect Real Madrid. And if I say I’m scared of them, I would be false. I know people don’t believe me in Madrid when I say good things and when I say jokes people always think I am taking the piss. It’s not about that. When I was a player and as a manager I always had a good opinion of the history and the people there.”
City’s captain, Kyle Walker, missed last week’s game because of a hamstring injury and faces a late fitness test for Wednesday’s game. Guardiola said: “I’m going to see the training. He [has] trained good, he feels something but he feels good with his mood. I don’t know from the beginning or from the bench but I think he will be with us tomorrow.”
