Chelsea lost to Liverpool in the League Cup final on Sunday narrowly missing out on penalties, but there was one player on the losing team who quite simply never deserves to be on the losing side and certainly didn’t deserve to be on Sunday.
Thiago Silva is just the type of player who consistently puts in at least an 8/10 performance every single game he plays, most of the time even higher. Sunday in the final he was a 10/10 in my opinion, and he is the finest example of a football player in world football right now. At 37-years old he is easily for me one of the best in the world, he is at the top of his trade and playing some of the best football he has ever played.
But for me, football isn’t just about your ability and quality, it is also largely about your desire and intensity that you play with. Just study this clip below of a moment in the Liverpool game where Thiago Silva absolutely busted a gut to get back and clear the ball off the line to see exactly what I mean here.
Look at his starting position at the start of the video, look how many players are ahead of him including the fast N’Golo Kante and Mateo Kovacic, and just look at Silva coast past all of them and get to the goal first. Trevoh Chalobah is a player who also plays with a lot of desire, but look at the difference between him and Silva. Chalobah basically gives up which is just a lack of experience, but Silva knows if he gets to the line he has a good chance of stopping a goal and he only had one thing in his mind.
This is what makes him standout as a player, and this is what puts a player on the forefront and is the difference between just being a quality player and being an absolutely world class one, which Silva proves every week that he is.
There is no doubt in my mind that even though he has only been at Chelsea for a couple of seasons, he is already a Blues legend and that will only increase the longer he stays here. In fact, can we just sign him for another 5-years? Because all jokes aside I have no doubt he’d still be doing this type of stuff above well into his 40s given half the chance!
What a man, what a player, and what a prime example to all young players coming up through the ranks in football all over the globe.
