Ever since arriving at the Etihad from Benfica in the summer of 2020, the Portuguese central defender has been a pivotal figure in what has proved the most successful era in the Club’s history.
The 27-year-old has been at the heart of the Club’s historic four consecutive Premier League title triumphs as well proving a totemic figure in City’s iconic 2022/23 Treble campaign.
All told, including last term’s UEFA Super Cup and FIFA Club World Cup triumphs, Dias has helped City to accumulate 10 major pieces of silverware in the four years since he joined.
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However, rather than seeing his appetite for success quenched by such a remarkable collection of prizes, Dias instead says that body of success only forms part of the record he and his colleagues want to put in place.
“We are here for the long run and here to create a legacy of our own as a team,” Dias declared
“I think by now people have realised that we are not here for the next small win, or the next Premier League, Carabao Cup, FA Cup or Champions League.
“I think that is why we are the way that we are and the way we play every new season.
“That’s why we stay hungry and why we come back every season wanting to do it again.
“It is all about the long game, not about looking back now because we are all young and have a lot to go for still.
“What matters, and we are all very aware of it, is that when we finish our career, we want to know that we gave it all we had to give, and we did our absolute best.
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“Now, all of us are intelligent enough to know that we are in a team, and we are in a space in time where anything is possible in this club and in this team.
“We push, push and push again.
“We realise the perspective we live in, and we want to keep on winning.”
That insatiable hunger for sustained success was echoed by Dias’s City and Portugal team-mate Bernardo Silva.
Since his arrival at City from Monaco in the summer of 2017, the midfielder has proved one of City’s and the Premier League’s most accomplished performers.
He has been one of the mainstays of Guardiola’s incredible era of 18 major trophies – but as with Dias, Bernardo says the players’ focus is all about the next challenge.
“All of us, at least once or twice, we’ve tasted defeat and we know how it feels to lose and to win.
“We can promise you that the feeling of winning is better than losing and we don’t want to taste defeat again.
“When we get knocked out of the Champions League or the Cups, we don’t like it.
“Every game is an important step to have the feeling of winning. It’s a very good feeling and we want to repeat it and repeat it.”
