Ruben Dias says Manchester City will push themselves to leave a “footmark on the history of football.”
Not content with dominating the English game with four Premier League titles in the past five years, the Abu Dhabi-owned club are intent on achieving even more.
That is the belief of defender Dias, who has won championships in both his two seasons with City since joining from Benfica for ?65 million.
He wants another in this campaign — and only Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United have managed this feat in three successive seasons in the Premier League era.
And that’s what City want — to lift the major honors and be remembered as one of the game’s greatest sides.
A first Champions League is another target and Pep Guardiola’s men also host Chelsea in the EFL Cup on Wednesday — a competition they have won six times in nine years.
“I think consistency is a word that can never be fulfilled,” Dias told Arab News exclusively.
“We always need to keep pushing and there is always room to get better.
“We always want more. In the end all of us want to be at the top and to be at the top you need to win.
“You can have one of the best teams in the world but you need to be there, you need to be there on the big occasions, you need to win trophies and that’s what we aim for every time.
“Yes, definitely (we want to make history), that’s in my mind.
But I always like to think about things day by day.
“I have my long-term goals but none of them would be accomplished if I didn’t think about tomorrow first.
“Success comes with no big long-term expectations, it comes with the next day and then the next day.
“To be focused on what you are doing at the moment and not too much on how things could be, how beautiful or not beautiful things could be or not could be in the future. It’s about keeping focused.”
That need for focus was emphasised following the recent trip to Anfield as City saw their unbeaten start to the season end at rivals Liverpool through Mohamed Salah’s strike.
They have responded with league wins over Brighton and Leicester to keep them within reach of current leaders Arsenal.
But Dias, 25, added: “We can always get better. We lost the game against Liverpool so there’s always the space to do things better and to improve.
“Even when you do things amazingly the most difficult part of all is to do it consistently. All of us, we still have a lot to improve within a team full of great players.
“That’s the spirit here and that’s the reason why this team has won so much and the reason why we still want to win a lot more.
“It is simply because, even though we are good, very good, we all know it isn’t enough and to actually get a footmark on the history of football we need to push ourselves every time.”
As a center-back, Dias has come up against the world’s best strikers — be it Karim Benzema, Robert Lewandowski, Kylian Mbappe or his current team-mate Erling Haaland, who has scored 22 goals in 15 games since his summer move from Borussia Dortmund.
Dias smiles as he refuses to acknowledge one or the other as his greatest foe.
Instead, he accepts and embraces the challenge: “I have never individualized on that because it would be just unfair to everyone. Everyone is very good in their own way and in a way you cannot compare.
“You can compare statistics, but then you have a guy who is faster, a guy that is smarter, a guy who is most skilful or stronger in the air. It all depends on what the team needs and what they can offer.
“Erling is obviously one of the best I’ve played against. He’s got very unique characteristics, but even him, he can always do better.”
While attention will soon turn to the World Cup, which takes place in Qatar from Nov. 20, Dias will not allow his, nor the team’s, focus to be swayed.
He will be part of Portugal’s squad for the finals and hoping to make a first appearance in the tournament after not playing in Russia four years ago, where his side lost to Uruguay in the last 16.
With talent such as Dias, Bernardo Silva, Bruno Fernandes, Rafael Leao and Cristiano Ronaldo in their ranks, Portugal will be expected to go further, despite a tough group that includes Uruguay, South Korea and Ghana.
“The ambition is high for the World Cup obviously, but in its own time we will focus on that,” said Dias.
“First of all the biggest ambition is to win all the games we have left for City. There are still important games left and it will be very important for when we restart the Premier League.
“The World Cup means the world, not just my country but to everyone. To be a part of it is special, a pleasure to play one.
“This is my second one and it’s a big opportunity to enjoy football, play football and do what I love the most.”
And he warned: “We have a good team too.”