Manchester: There’ll be no standing ovation in a full stadium for David Silva after his final appearance for Manchester City.
He won’t be grabbing a microphone — Pablo Zalabeta-style — and making a triumphant speech to City’s fans, either. Not that it’s his style, anyway. Indeed, whisper it but there’s an outside chance, if circumstances dictate, that the man they call “Merlin” — after the mythical wizard — might already have worn the club’s blue shirt in a competitive game for the last time.
Now, let’s take the best-case scenario: How about Silva ending his decade-long, era-changing City career by lifting the Champions League trophy as captain? Whatever happens over the coming days during the finale of Europe’s top club competition in Lisbon, the Spanish playmaker has already etched his name in City lore as perhaps its greatest player. More than that, Silva has been a driving force behind the way soccer has been redefined in England, where subtlety, creativity and technical qualities are valued as much as the long-standing virtues of power and physicality. “He’s tiny,” City manager Pep Guardiola said, “a little player, not a box-to-box player. And my image of England from the outside, I thought, ‘Maybe he’s going to suffer.’” “Happily,” Guardiola added, “I was wrong.” Silva’s City story began long before Guardiola arrived at Etihad Stadium in 2016 and got the best out of his compatriot.
Six years earlier, in fact, when he joined from Valencia for 24 million pounds and as a newly crowned World Cup winner with Spain. The Premier League wasn’t the domain of the little playmaker at the time — Chelsea’s attacking midfielders were the powerful Michael Ballack and Frank Lampard, for example, and Liverpool’s was dynamic captain Steven Gerrard — though the seeds of change were there.
Luka Modric was starting to excel in a deeper role at Tottenham, Cesc Fabregas was already flourishing at Arsenal, albeit in a more box-to-box role.
Deco, the Brazilian schemer comparable in style to Silva, had two fairly underwhelming seasons at Chelsea from 2008-10. Silva’s arrival felt significant, and not just because a player who could easily have been at home in the midfield of Barcelona or Real Madrid was choosing to play his peak years at a rising upstart like City.(AP)
