Bernardo Silva is more than a footballer. He’s a time-travelling, shapeshifting superhero. He even looks like a superhero – a nine-volt battery of a man doing battle with feral giants on the pitch. In 55 years of watching football I’ve never seen anybody or anything like him. For the past decade I’ve been lucky enough to watch him turning out week in, week out for my club, Manchester City. And now it’s time to say goodbye.
Some footballers are famous for having played in virtually every position on the field. James Milner, John O’Shea and Phil Neville come to mind. They tend to be solid, stolid types, as reliable as they are unimaginative.
Silva is in a sphere of his own, though, when it comes to versatility. Not only is he supremely skilful, he often plays in every position in a single match. Occasionally he even plays in every position in a single move. He’ll collect the ball from the keeper, the Lisbon Beckenbauer and the most unlikely libero on earth. As the ball is recycled in defence, he’ll pop up at right-back. More recycling, and he’s now the playmaker extraordinaire, turning on a sixpence for the eye-of-a-needle, defence-splitting pass. More recycling. Then he pops up on the wing to curl an inswinging cross into the back post. By the time the ball gets half-cleared to the edge of the penalty area, Bernardo will be there to blast a shot high and wide into the crowd.
To be fair there have been great goals – the curler into the top corner against Arsenal, the screamer against United, the astonishing volley against Birmingham in the FA Cup where he can-cans the ball into the net (it’s such a one-off that fans debate whether it’s a volley, half-volley or a shot that transcends language). Then there are the hugely important goals – none more so than the two against Real Madrid in the 2023 Champions League semi-final. And the surprising number of headers for a man of his height (he is a head-tennis genius).
His stats aren’t outstanding. He won’t be remembered for the number of goals or assists (76 goals and 77 assists in 459 appearances). But he will be for his astonishing grace, huge intelligence, the ability to find space where none exists, to beat men with shimmies so subtle you don’t see them, and to dribble through brick walls. Most of all he’ll be remembered for that superhuman double engine. The sheer stamina. He never seems to tire, never wants to be substituted, is hardly ever injured. Bernardo is one of life’s great endurers. In City’s 2-1 home victory over Liverpool in 2019 he ran 13.7km, the greatest distance recorded in a Premier League match. If he hadn’t been a world-class footballer, he could have been a samurai.
When it came to Manchester, he also endured. Every season he told us he wanted to leave, but that wasn’t because he didn’t love us. It was just because he and his family wanted sunnier climes. In the end, though, Manchester and City won out. Until now.
For 109 glorious games, Bernardo played in midfield alongside his namesake David. The original magician and his prodigy. This was Pep’s prime pocket-size era. Guardiola didn’t want players who could embarrass the opposition by putting the ball through opponents’ legs, he wanted players who could put themselves between opponents’ legs.
We used to sing to the Spandau Ballet classic: “Who needs Gold? Gold! We’ve got two Silvas, you know. David and Bernardo! We’re indestructible!” And we were. In the era of the two Silvas, City became the first and only Premier League team to secure 100 points in a season and the first and only to win a domestic clean sweep of trophies. With one Silva they then secured a treble of league, FA Cup and Champions League and went on to became the first team to win four successive Premier League titles.
My friend BriceyG and I have a nickname for Bernardo that shows our age. To us, he was Schnorbitz, a tribute to Bernie Winters’ adorable dog. In a way, it couldn’t have been less suitable. Schnorbitz was a huge, lumbering, slobbering Saint Bernard. But in another way it was perfect. Bernardo could dribble just as well as Schnorbitz, and there has always been something puppyish about him.
He’s cute, fun, lovable – when he likes you. There are endless videos of City players carrying him around like a doll, or chucking him into a pool because it amuses them. But he can also bite. Rivals would love him to play for them, but they can’t stand him when he’s playing for us. He’s master of the tactical foul, the sly nudge, and he has been known to let his boot linger. Against Brentford a couple of weeks ago, he clashed with Nathan Collins and I genuinely feared for the 6ft 4in defender. “Bernardo does have a tendency to rile opponents,” the commentator said, admiringly. And his tongue can be just as sharp as his tackle. When asked in one video why he hadn’t been training in the gym, Bernardo said: “I don’t do gym. That’s for the guys who don’t know how to play with their feet.”
Perhaps he was at his spikiest when City formed a guard of honour after Liverpool won the league in July 2020. He was the only City player who refused to clap the newly crowned champions. When the cameras homed in on him, it turned out he had a mug in his hand. Cupofteagate was a succès de scandale that assured him legend status at City. Afterwards he explained himself in true Bernardo style. “In my opinion, it’s a kind of a hypocrisy. It’s not a tradition we have in Portugal. If they want to do it, they can do it, but I wasn’t going to clap Liverpool because that’s not how I celebrate defeat. When I win a title, I don’t need anyone else to clap for me.”
In his final season at City he’s been captain and led a new team to triumph in the League Cup and FA Cup. Again, his numbers haven’t been anything to write home about (three goals and five assists), but the only thing this proves is that stats do lie. He’s leaving at his peak. Never has he been more omnipresent than over the past nine months. This season he’s not only been undroppable, he’s been virtually unsubstitutable. My defining memory of Bernardo 2025-26 is him flying through the air to beat Arsenal’s Viktor Gyökeres (6ft 2in) to a gravity-defying, potentially match-winning clearance. This was the header that prompted Erling Haaland to tell him: “You were like fucking Cannavaro.”
For Pep, Bernardo was more than a footballer he admired, more than a player he dare not drop, more than an obsession. For Pep, Bernardo was an addiction. He put it best last December after City beat West Ham 3-0. “Bernie’s my weakness. My favourite one,” he said. Who am I to disagree with Pep?
