For a considerable time, Spanish football was the nucleus of a universe dominated by a group of very special players, against the prevailing fashions, definitely countercultural, heterodox in what they preached on the pitch and in the perception they conveyed around them. Small, light and cunning – or tall, gangly and shrewd in the case of Busquets – they seemed predestined to a pleasant but minor role, at a time defined by the speculative model that Italy and Greece, the last two world and European champions, had established. Against this widespread idea, an unexpected group of players rebelled, determined to contradict the clichés and willing to dominate football. David Silva was one of them. And his withdrawal is about to fall, dejected by a torn ligament in his knee.
Wherever he has gone, it is impossible to discuss the Silva effect and the gigantic mark he has left on Valencia, Manchester City, Real Sociedad and the Spanish team. In each stage of his professional career, David Silva’s contribution to his teams has been enormous. He improved everyone, he won titles with everyone and everyone earned general admiration. And more than in any other guild, among his fellow professionals.
Like Xavi, Iniesta or Cazorla, the main representatives of the generation that governed football at the turn of the first and second decades of this century, David Silva invited misunderstandings. That is, the art of denying appearance, confusing the staff and winning the challenge. At 1.70m tall, Silva appeared without making a sound, the typical tall little footballer, endowed with skills that made him stand out among the Spanish youth players, but which did not invite us to think of a resounding leap to the professional pinnacle. In the prejudiced world of soccer, players like him have been greeted with doubt at best, rejection all too often and low expectations almost always.
It is very difficult to win the battle between perception and reality. Labels tend to prevail, established ideas that require a bestial effort to disrupt them. In this regard, David Silva participated in the very first row in a revolution like no other. Never have so many, so good and small, rebelled against the established order, with no other basis than the usual clichés. And a more resounding triumph has never been seen: Silva is the archetype of the player who radically changed the conventions of the game and put an end to the dominant criteria of what used to be called modernity, the most traditional and debatable of the adjectives that preside over opinions in football.
Silva, and that band of geniuses, to which Modric and other notable successors were soon added –Bernardo Silva, for example– retire after a work that changed in one fell swoop the typical story of a game that walked in one direction and suddenly took the opposite, led by the Spanish team, Barça and later Manchester City. In his case, he achieved it by reality, from the first moment. At the age of 18, he arrived at Eibar, in theory the least advisable of the teams for a player of his characteristics, and confirmed in the mud of Ipurúa not only his ingenuity, but also the courage and competitive vigor that have characterized his career.
The king of the pause and the filtered pass, fierce competitor and flag of the teams through which he has passed, from the first to the last, is withdrawn. At 37, at Real Sociedad, who will play this season in the Champions League, he removed a knee injury. Ask Imanol Alguacil, Zubimendi, the San Sebastian fans about Silva, and the answer will be unanimous: nothing will be the same without him.
