Rúben Dias’ extraordinary first season in English football has been recognised with the Football Writers’ Player of the Year award, the prestigious prize issued by the country’s top journalists.
Dias, who signed for Manchester City from Benfica last September for a fee reportedly in the region of €65m, is widely regarded as having replaced club legend Vincent Kompany in the City defence and has been one of the standout performers in a title-winning campaign for Pep Guardiola’s men.
The Seleção man was announced as the winner of the FWA Player of the Year on Thursday, joining an illustrious list for a prize which has been running since the 1947-48 season in England. Dias becomes the second Portuguese to win the award after Cristiano Ronaldo, who was a back-to-back winner in 2007 and 2008.
The Portugal centre-back bypassed Man City partner Kevin de Bruyne and Tottenham striker Harry Kane in the vote, as reported in https://bookmaker-ratings.com/
Speaking to Man City’s in-house media after winning the award, Dias gave a fascinating insight into his mentality and the characteristics which helped the 23-year-old settle seamlessly into English football and into manager Guardiola’s system after his high-profile move last year.
“Obviously it’s a huge privilege and I’m very very happy,” he said. “But as always I could not have done it without the success of the team and without everyone in the team being deserving of this award. Only through that can I - as a defender - be able to be here to receive this prize.
“Essentially when I came I wanted to meet everyone as fast as possible and to understand generally how the team plays. Obviously I knew the team already, the players, the manager. I knew a bit about the philosophy because I’m a fan of football first of all and obviously when you’re a fan of football you must know City from what they’ve been doing in recent years. So I already had an idea of what I was coming to, which was part of my decision obviously.
“It means something different because normally the ones who finish the moves are the ones who get the spotlight. But I think me receiving this prize is the major example of the way our team works and the way we build our game. I think it reflects the togetherness we have on the pitch and essentially how we perform and the spirit in the team. With this team and these players, for me to receive the award it shows that we play like a family.
“Since I began playing football, I have always been most concerned about winning. Almost winning at all costs. However it needs to happen. Whoever I need to shout at. Whatever I need to do to motivate, to bring everyone together and make everyone around me better - I’ll do it. I’ll learn how to speak to everyone because you need to speak to everyone in different ways.
“Obviously I have my talent. I had to improve my talent along the years. And for me it was like a 50/50. At the same time as I needed to improve my game technically, I also needed to improve my game in terms of relations with everyone else. Because in the end you see football is a collective sport. It’s not individual. You can learn many things from individual sport, but our sport is more complete.
“It requires more capacity from you and I’ve always tried to build on that and be better in all of those aspects. It’s always been part of my game to try and help whoever I play with, be it the centre-back I’m playing with; the right-back, the left-back. And in the end, on the pitch it’s all about correcting whatever we feel is not right. And sometimes it’s people correcting me and me having the capacity to listen and accept that I’m not always right.
“I think that specific characteristic in every player is something you can especially see in our team. It makes a huge difference when you can see it on the outside. So that’s something I’ve always been working on.”
By Sean Gillen
