Bernardo Silva insists he does not deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as his international team-mate Cristiano Ronaldo.
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola recently said Silva was Portugal’s “biggest star” as he hailed the playmaker’s performances for his side.
But on Tuesday five-time world player of the year Ronaldo underlined his enduring class by scoring a hat-trick against Atletico Madrid as Juventus overturned a 2-0 first-leg deficit to join City in the Champions League quarter-finals.
“I think people interpreted things a little differently to what he meant,” said Silva of Guardiola’s remarks.
“Of course Cristiano – what he has done over the last 15 years in football – is probably one of the best players ever in the history of football, so no comparison to him.”
City will discover their quarter-final opponents on Friday and Silva, who on Wednesday signed a contract extension keeping him at the Etihad Stadium until 2025, admits he would not relish a clash with Ronaldo.
Obrigado @Cristiano !🔝🇵🇹😃👍 pic.twitter.com/5tzJHrJRqu— Bernardo Silva (@BernardoCSilva) June 25, 2017
The 24-year-old said: “I wouldn’t like it very much, to be honest. I know him, I know what he’s capable of and once again he proved it.
“When you are playing in a competition like the Champions League you have to know that you can get drawn against these kind of teams, these kind of players, and it is a good thing.
“It means you are playing in the best competitions.
“We will see who we are playing against but, of course, to play against Cristiano is always complicated.”
Quadruple-chasing City powered into the last eight themselves as they thrashed Schalke 7-0 at the Etihad Stadium to complete a 10-2 aggregate success.
After three successive hard-fought wins against defensively minded sides in the Premier League, City were back to their most clinical.
It was the seventh time they had scored six or more in a match this season.
Silva said: “I think this is a team who play offensive football. We try to press high, we try to have the control of the game to have the ball as much as possible and when we lose the ball we try to recover as fast as possible.
“We try to score goals, try not to concede and prevent the counter-attacks.
“Sometimes it’s complicated because the teams defend very deep against us but of course we try to be very offensive and create chances to score lots of goals.”
