Ruben Dias describes this season, his first at Manchester City without winning the Premier League, as the cost of success.
There is no better example than the whirlwind 48 hours that led to his injury, which has been one of the many factors in the top flight having a new winner for the first time in four years.
It started at the opulent Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris on the Monday of that week in October, with Dias on the red carpet to support his team-mate Rodri winning the Ballon d’Or. As one of City’s captains, Dias was there in person to see his team-mate being crowned as the best player in the world.
On the Wednesday there is a League Cup tie at Tottenham and Pep Guardiola makes a late call for Dias to start, because Manuel Akanji picks up an injury in the warm-up. Dias has blood on his calf from a knock in training, has been on antibiotics but does what captains and leaders do – he plays. But lasts only 45 minutes.
“It is part of you understanding what you can do better,” he said. “I had a tackle in training which left my calf full of blood. I went to the Ballon d’Or and went to bed at 5am because I felt it was my place as a friend and colleague to be there with him and be happy for him.
“Then straight back to Manchester, straight to London. I was on antibiotics as I was ill. So it was like an accumulation of these things. Then I wasn’t playing and get told five minutes before I’m on the pitch that I’m going to play.
“This just gives you the context, at the end you look for the details and you look for balance and these are the circumstances that put me at risk. I know I was at risk, then I got injured on the calf where I had the blood.”
City were unbeaten this season until that evening against Spurs, then without the cornerstone of their defence lost their next four games, picking up other injuries on the way. Dias returned to a team in freefall and he was desperate to help them get back on track but five games in 15 days led to a hamstring problem.
“I am not worried because in the end I am not feeling like I was weak in any way – it was just what was coming,” he says. “Maybe we didn’t manage the situation the best when I did my calf and the rest was accumulation.”
Dias, 27, is in the perfect position to assess where City are. When he arrived from Benfica in 2020 he joined a City team hungry to take the title back off Liverpool, which he helped them to achieve at the first attempt.
Dias’ team-mates saw his leadership and voted him as one of the vice-captains to support Fernandinho. He has always been determined to help the team, although this season has paid the price with his fitness.
There is still the FA Cup to play for and a Champions League place that Guardiola has likened to winning a trophy. Every Premier League game is a cup final, starting with this weekend against fellow top-five candidates Brighton.
For Dias, this campaign has been the price of dominating for four years. There have been frank team meetings about their slide down the table but there are also foundations being laid for next season. He says their new signings are “starving” and there is a different atmosphere.
“Maybe this season was a cost we had to go through because of all the emotion of the past years,” he said. “It’s football and we take it gladly. There’s no need to panic. We know very well who we are and the only way forward is to keep on working.
“This season was difficult so there was more than one time when we felt we needed to speak with each other but there’s also a time when you know what’s wrong and what has to improve so it’s time to go on the pitch and work harder than ever.
“People will always want to take what’s yours, especially when we’ve conquered this much and we are the team we are. All the new signings come starving and they want to win. To be in a club like this, you want nothing else. You want people that are starving and want to win at all costs.
“I’m 27 and I feel like I’ve a lot to give. Not because my age says so, but because my feeling and will says so. This is my fifth season and I still want to win so much.”
Coaching kids took Dias’ mind back to his own journey that started in Amadora, near Lisbon, where he was scouted by Benfica and educated in their famed academy. He also worked with a personal coach, Francisco Oliveira, to add to his physicality. He gained muscle mass and added 40 centimetres to his standing jump, which have been key attributes to his physical defending.
Dias made the decision to work on this side of his game after the meetings to decide whether or not to keep academy players at the end of a season. “One of the coaches came up to me and said, ‘You have everything you need, you don’t need anything else but I’ll tell you a secret. You are strong and powerful enough but in the future if you look stronger, maybe it will help when people are assessing you,’” he recalls.
City will have a Portuguese influence going forward, with Hugo Viana starting as director of football in the summer. With Ruben Amorim at City’s rivals, Manchester has Lisbon bloodlines running through it.
“Deep down we’ve always known the quality that exists in that small country and little by little from Cristiano Ronaldo, Nani, Ricardo Carvalho and so many others, the way started to be shaped,” Dias says.
“I guess it is also down to the Portuguese quality as you have players coming from Benfica and other places. It is very much down to the freshly squeezed juice that exists in Portugal. Even watching the game between PSG and Liverpool, to watch Nuno [Mendes], Vitinha, Joao Neves is a joy for me as a Portuguese.”
City are fighting to be back on that stage with Paris Saint-Germain next season. Those key elements to his game, taught at Benfica, will be needed to get City back on track.
“Right now we are building what’s to come. Every day we are building, in the near future, next season, that’s the way I like to take things.
“We know what we have done together and what we have done together has never been done by anyone. We know the cost of how much we dedicated ourselves to achieving those things. Being true to ourselves and keep on doing things in the way we believe. Then naturally things will come.”
