Bernardo Silva interview on Real Madrid, Man City and more

Bernardo Silva spoke to SPORT in perfect Spanish ahead of Man City's clash with Real Madrid on Wednesday.

When you finished first in the group you didn't expect to wind up playing Madrid...

Playing against such a strong team is never easy but the Champions Leauge is like that. If you want to win you have to deserve it and deserving it means beating the best. We'll go there with respect but a lot of ambition. We know are qualities and we're convinced of what we can do.

Have you followed Madrid much?

Whenever I'm able to. I love to watch football at home. If Madrid are playing and I have time I'll watch, and more with this game coming. It's important to know how your opponents are playing. This Madrid are almost the same team that won the three Champions Leagues in a row. Benzema is having a great season, with Bale and Hazard alongside they are always dangerous, Modric won the Ballon d'Or recently and their centre-back pairing is strong.

City have a young dressing room, not experienced many nights like this. How do you take on a game like this?

I, for example, have never played against Madrid but it will be nice. When you're a kid you dream of these days, playing at the Bernabeu or at Camp Nou, stadiums of this type. We're taking on a team that's won it all, but the past isn't important, what's more important is the 90 minutes in each game. We're a young team but this does not intimidate us. The reverse, this is good pressure. It means you are where you have to be.

You feel that a lot of is expected of Man City in the UCL?

Absolutely. It's the one thing we've not got since Pep arrived and it excites us a lot. The last two seasons we haven't done very well but when you get people expecting you to win titles, as we've done here, they always expect you to go further. And in our case that's the Champions. We know the pressure and expectations, we know that we're playing for a lot in Madrid because the Premier League is over, but we're taking it on well.

Many people in Spain are asking what's going on with City this season in the PL

We're sad about how the Premier League has gone. It's not an easy competition and we'd won it two years in a row - something that hadn't happened for a decade. The reality is that we're not playing it alone, Liverpool are there and having a very impressive season. There's still much to fight for, the squad knows it. We've had a lot of injuries, team-mates are coming back who are important. We know we should have done better in the Premier League, but it's not ending here.

If you get through, do you see yourself among the favourites?

Barca with Messi are always very dangerous, they can beat anyone. PSG, if Neymar and Mbappe are fit can be a candidate even though they don't have the experience. And we want it, obviously, we're hoping for the Champions League. Let's see what happens.