Bernardo Silva feels City have made progress this summer but that there's still more work to do ahead of the 2025/26 Premier League season.
Pep Guardiola’s side exited the FIFA Club World Cup in the early hours of Tuesday morning following our 4-3 extra-time defeat to Al-Hilal.
Bernardo featured for the entirety of the match at the Camping World Stadium and the skipper led by example, giving City a deserved lead on nine minutes with a close-range finish.
However, City would rue missed opportunities in the first half with Al-Hilal taking a 2-1 lead early in the second 45.
Erling Haaland drew us level before an extra 30 minutes were needed to decide a winner.
Extra-time goals from Kalidou Koulibaly and Marcos Leonardo were too much for Phil Foden’s late strike as City were defeated by the Saudi Pro League side.
MATCH REPORT | CITY 3-4 AL-HILAL
And despite our ambitions to advance further in the Club World Cup, Bernardo was quick to point out the positive learnings from the competition and the team’s desire to continue our development ahead of the 2025/26 campaign.
“We had a lot of ambition for this competition; we wanted to get really far. I think the team was playing well, so we are very disappointed,” said the midfielder.
“We play to win trophies, and when we don’t win, we are always disappointed; it’s never enough.
“But the guys that are inside [the changing room] know that we’ve improved and we’re improving a lot.
“We’re starting to feel the team back, the atmosphere in the dressing room, the energy and even the way we play. I think there has been some improvement.
“We’re not totally happy because we wanted to do much better, but we are starting to feel some good energy back from the team to go back to our level.”
Watch Bernardo Silva’s post-match interview in full via the video above...