Thiago Silva's timeless leadership has Fluminense dreaming of Club World Cup glory

New York Times

a day ago

With the royal blue armband still strapped around his left bicep like a tourniquet, Thiago Silva is incongruous to the setting.
Having laid the Fluminense crest in the middle of the pitch at Camping World Stadium in Orlando, the entire team and staff form a loop around the centre circle.
Hands intertwined and raised aloft as if on a podium, they skip half a rotation left and half a rotation right, to the beat of thousands of Brazilians celebrating the 'ugly ducklings' overcoming the opulence of Al Hilal to reach the final four of the Club World Cup.
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It is a haze of maroon euphoria but their leader Silva, the man whose words inspired them to another underdog victory in the last round against Inter Milan, breaks the circle slightly early.
Some players are hugging like velcro, others have flags draped around them. Some swing club scarves like a lasso.
Not Silva. He is stoic, walking alone towards the tunnel, sipping from a water bottle, his mind already focused on the semi-final. A picture of tranquility that makes his spine-tingling team talk four days earlier look like it was delivered by a different person.
Control is his superpower. At the full-time whistle, he momentarily dropped to his knees and pointed to the sky before being hounded by the bench, but within seconds he was back to serenity.
Silva, who turns 41 in two months, was a well of composure all game. When Matheus Martinelli scored to take the lead against Al Hilal, he did not chase after his team-mate. He stood mid-pitch and pointed to the sky for a couple of seconds before talking his defensive partner through a tactical point.
In most other teams, at 28 years old, Ignacio would be regarded as a senior player. Not in this Fluminense team.
There is one God here and he is the No 3, sporting a cut on his nose that he refuses to have attended to apart from during a water break in which he and manager Renato Gaucho speak only between themselves.
He is also the player, above all, who really does not have to be here, putting his body on the line, treating every opposition attack like interrogation of his pride even after 15 years at the top of European football.
But he is here, and he is guiding Fluminense, his club, towards immortality.
It may have been Hercules who got the final goal, just like against Inter Milan with another cross-goal this time on his right foot, but it was another herculean effort from their quadragenarian centre-back that provided the base to win.
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Even with a resume that boasts Serie A, Ligue 1, Champions League and Copa America winners medals, the Brazil centurion plays with the concentration of someone who refuses to take a single moment of defensive peace for granted.
He enjoys suffering because he knows what it is to suffer. In 2005, he spent six months in a hospital with tuberculosis and was initially told he might not be able to play football again. It led to depression and he had not played over 15 senior games in a season by the age of 23.
Silva has had to battle to get to this point in his career, the final stretch which is now only two games away from one last, defining triumph.
Back at the club that kickstarted his career aged 21, following an unsuccessful move to Porto having worked his way up from the third division of Brazilian football, you sense that returning to the underdog mentality with his boyhood club is awakening something deeper, more intense inside him.
'Thiago Silva is huge,' said his manager Gaucho after the 2-1 win.
'He's the coach on the pitch. He conveys calm and experience to the other players. He's the captain, the leader and, in hard matches against great clubs, it's important to have a player with his profile.
'He's fundamental. During the week we try not to use him in training so he's 100 per cent available for the match.'
Silva is held in such lofty esteem by his colleagues but they are so subservient to him they are more akin to a flock. He is the elder they aspire to be, the voice they hang on to at the few still moments in the game — or in the minutes before they go out to play, like his speech he delivered before the 2-0 victory over Inter.
'Don't wait until after the game to say what you could have done, no,' he said, shaking his head profusely before standing up to wipe his face clear of the tears.
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'My stepfather was the person who made me become Thiago Silva. He was sick and I didn't know how serious the illness was.
'I went back to the national team and the World Cup ended the way it ended. He was hospitalized and I went back to Paris. I started the pre-season and in one of my first matches my wife called me and said 'Your father passed away'.
'What am I trying to say with this?… I didn't go to see him at the hospital because I thought he was going to be fine. Don't leave for later what you can do now because there might not be time.
'Seize the moment, enjoy it, but enjoy it with responsibility. Having said that, we need to finish the match with 11 players. Don't take this to an unfair place. Be fair but compete. Compete, dammit. We all need to compete, together.'
There are not many speeches worth quoting in full but in under 90 seconds he captured what has made him such a powerful leader throughout his career — and perhaps why Brazil lost 7-1 to Germany at the 2014 World Cup in his absence.
'Thiago is a big reference in global football,' said Fluminense winger John Arias.
'He's one of the best defends in history and he has our complete admiration and respect.
'He's a wonderful person, magnificent. He had a rough time because he lost his stepfather and sometimes this kind of difficult in life helps you to find motivation and this is what happened with Thiago.'
His 896 career appearances is a rich pool of experience but the man behind him in goal, 44-year-old Fabio, has also played a crucial part in Fluminense conceding just three times in five games.
He has now played 1,379 senior games as a professional footballer, a total that is now only six shy of former England goalkeeper Peter Shilton's disputed all-time record.
Silva's counterpart Kalidou Koulibaly, who spent the 2022-23 season with him at Chelsea, momentarily came to blows with Silva after claiming a penalty but he had nothing but praise for him at full time. Hours later, Chelsea would be confirmed as Fluminense's semi-final opponent, after defeating Palmeiras in Friday's second late game.
'I have a lot of respect for Thiago,' he said.
'I know him from Chelsea and a little before. For me, he is a legend having played together for a year. I know him very well. Nice guy, nice team-mate. He gave a lot of advice to his team and controlled the team. We saw it today and we saw it in this tournament.
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'He deserves to be here. Today I lost against him and am very sad but I hope he continues to the end.'
The full-time music that greets each Fluminense win is becoming familiar.
A mellow trumpet-laden ballad that has the ambience of a 1940s speakeasy, it is everything the increasingly sanitised, indistinguishable landscape of modern European football isn't.
In many ways, it is Thiago Silva at this Club World Cup. Understated, happy to be in the background, but with a spirit that proudly marches on.