Soriano was a guest at the Welcome Reception for the 2023 Davis Cup Finals Group Stage event held at the National Football Museum in Manchester.
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Tennis stars from Great Britain, Australia, France and Switzerland including Andy Murray, Cam Norrie and Dan Evans were at the event as were the three trophies that City won last season along with the European Super Cup we collected in August.
Asked about our recent haul of silverware, Soriano said the incredible success had come after 10 years of hard work and determination.
“We have four trophies, and a lot of people are very happy about it and congratulating us and saying: ‘what a season’,” he said. “What I say is, it’s not a season – it’s a decade, a decade of hard work.
“Winning the Champions League is symbolic and very important and has helped the visibility of the club. But the cold reality is that we could have lost that final.
“One year ago, we lost a semi-final in a game in Madrid that we were winning 0-1 in the 90th minute. We conceded two goals in one minute and in the previous year we lost the final.
“Ultimately, it’s not a year, it’s a decade. A decade of hard work and consistency. The way Manchester City plays football in the last decade is the same with little variations, but the pillars are the same.”
The late defeat to Real Madrid in the 2022 semi-final and the narrow loss to Chelsea in the 2021 final in Porto were painful European losses to take.
City boss Pep Guardiola has always maintained that success in the Champions League can come down to fine margins.
And the CEO believes those defeats helped the side to go on and lift the trophy and that the success has lifted some of the pressure.
“After losing in Madrid it was one of the worst days of our lives, we had 24 hours of drama,” he added.
“I tell people they can be miserable for 24 hours and in hour 25 we need to wake up, we need to move on and we need to think about the next game. That’s what made us champions.
“Now people say this season is going to be very tough because the bar is higher and people will ask you to win it again and I say ‘no way it’s just the contrary’.
“We knew this Manchester City team was able to win the Champions League and we lost it and lost it and lost it, but now we won it and people are relaxed.
“We’re now in a better place, we’re going to try to win again but we felt the weight on our shoulders of almost winning year after year.”
The event came ahead of the city welcoming the Davis Cup back for the first time since 1994.
Manchester will also become the fifth different UK city to host a stage of the men’s ‘World Cup of Tennis’ in the last 10 years, with Coventry, Glasgow, London and Birmingham having previously staged the event.
Soriano is a tennis fan and was delighted to welcome the tournament which will be held at the AO Arena from the 12 to 17 September.
“I’m a tennis player but a bad tennis player,” he said. “I’ve been a tennis player all my life.”
Great Britain will compete in Group B of the competition against Australia, France and Switzerland in a round-robin, with the top two teams in each group fighting for a place in the Final Eight which will take place in Malaga in November.
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