Bernardo Silva makes brutally honest admission after Man City’s shock Club World Cup exit to Al-Hilal
Bernardo Silva makes brutally honest admission after Man City’s shock Club World Cup exit to Al-Hilal.
Bernardo Silva admitted the pain of crashing out of the Club World Cup is similar to exiting the Champions League after Manchester City’s shock defeat by Al-Hilal.
Pep Guardiola’s men were left shell-shocked after the Saudi Arabian side pulled off a breathless 4-3 extra-time win in Orlando.
City twice came from behind but were finally vanquished by a scruffy goal from Marcos Leonardo after 112 minutes.
City have banked an estimated £37.8million and get more of a break before the Premier League season, so it is not all doom and gloom, but Silva was disappointed.
‘It does feel a little bit like going out of the Champions League, yeah,’ he admitted.
‘No one wanted to lose, we are very used to not having holidays unfortunately because the schedule is crazy. But when we are in a competition we take it very seriously and we had a lot of ambition for this Club World Cup and we wanted to win it.
‘There was always a feeling of danger coming from them when they recovered the ball in transition and their counters. The amount of time we allowed them to run was bad for us, they punished us.
‘We allowed them to run way too many times, we didn’t control the offensive transitions as well as we should have and apart from that we had chances, we scored three goals and we could have scored five or six.
‘Most teams that beat us play this way. We are very used to playing teams like this. We’ve played against teams like this for eight or nine years and we didn’t control those situations.
‘I’ve had a lot of disappointments and a lot of great things happening to me in my career. So whatever happened in this competition, in one month when we start the Premier League, we will forget and focus on having a great season.
‘We’ve had a lot of frustrations in the past as well, and we managed to come back. We’re going to try and do that again, knowing that we have a lot of competition, but we’re going to work very hard.’
Silva opened the scoring inside the first 10 minutes – as City had done in every group stage game – but the match unravelled in the second half.
Marcos Leonardo equalised early in the second half after a dazzling maze-like run from Malcom which set alarm bells ringing over Al-Hilal’s potency.
Minutes later, Malcom doubled Al-Hilal’s lead after a single through ball left him one-on-one with Ederson, but Erling Haaland replied almost immediately with a close-range strike of his own.
After 90 minutes, it was 2-2, so extra-time was needed to settle the affair, and it delievered in drama.
Former Chelsea defender Kalidou Koulibaly rose above the crowd to bullet home a header from a corner four minutes after the restart.
Phil Foden hit back with a volley after a lovely curling chip over the defence from Rayan Cherki, but Al-Hilal had the last laugh when Marcos Leonardo squeezed home his second.
Rodri replaced Ilkay Gundogan after 53 minutes but had to come off in extra-time with another blow, having only recently returned from a debilitating knee injury which required surgery and forced him to miss most of last season.
Pep Guardiola said: ‘In the end we have to score and be clinical. They did not create much in the first half, we did but could not finish it. I had a feeling we could go through.
‘We allowed them to make transitions [but] we created a lot. It is a pity, we have been on an incredible journey together [here] and in a good place. The vibe was really good, I cannot thank Manchester City enough and especially the players for training and how they have been playing.’