Thiago Silva will be remembered as a defensive Juggernaut and one of the greatest leaders in the modern football age in which he decides to retire.
The Brazilian, 40, enjoyed a shimmering 23-year career that brought him from Brazil to Elite clubs in Portugal, Italy, France and England. He has won trophies everywhere, including no fewer than seven Ligue 1 titles in Paris Saint-Germain and the Champions League with Chelsea.
After leaving the Stamford Bridge Club as a free agent at the end of the 2023/24 season, Silva returned to his boys' club, Fluminense last summer, and marked his return 15 years after he left for the first time. But few will know that the legendary leader of the National Team of the Brazil was closed 113 times – almost saw his career ending before it even started.
Silva started his senior club career in 2002 and played as a defensive midfielder for RS Futebol in Brazil before switching to his now well-known Center-Back position during a six-month period at Juventude.
His great performances gave him a move to Porto in 2004, but he did not succeed in breaking in the first team, making him a year later at Dynamo Moscow, 19 years old. But in Russia he was admitted to the hospital with an almost fatal attack of tuberculosis.
Silva spent five months in the hospital and would have died if he had been admitted two weeks later. He was advised to have part of his lung removed – which would certainly have ended his career – but his family objected to the operation.
The football icon once remembered: “Every now and then a doctor would come in and give me an injection, three or four times a day, plus 10-15 pills.”
His former Juventude coach, Ivo Wortmann, would save his career by finding a specialist in Portugal, who would become responsible for the treatment that the defender healed. After his full recovery, his mother persuaded him to make a wonderful return to football.
He told ESPN Brasil while he is still a Chelsea player last year: “Today, in Brazil, I am considered a cry baby. I don't think I'm better known in Europe than in Brazil, but I believe that I am a little more respected here than there.
“People don't see how strong I was. I fought against tuberculosis and almost died. That made me very strong. Crying is not something that weak people do, it is something that brave people do, and I was very brave in my life.”
Wortmann again played the role of a guardian angel and took him to Fluminense, where Silva had played as a teenager from 1998 to 2000 after he was appointed coach in 2006. Once there, his career really started, was described as one of the best players of the 2006 season despite the battle on his part.
His shape in the next three seasons – including a Copa do Brazil triumph – saw him be recognized as the best defender in Brazil and received call -ups for the national team. Silva received a second crack in a career in Europe after a transfer to Italian Giants AC Milan in 2009, where he won the Scudetto in 2010/11.
A record of £ 38 million transfer to PSG in 2012 made him the most expensive defender at the time before he became the longest serving captain of the club and won an amazing 23 trophies. His last performance for the Parisians came in the Final Cup League of 2020 Champions League against Bayern Munich, who would have completed his trophy cabinet.
But that would not be the end for Silva, because at the end of that season he took one of his best career decisions to join Chelsea to a free transfer as a 36-year-old veteran. He won the Champions League against all opportunities in his first campaign, with in eight European matches, including the 1-0 win over Manchester City in the final.
Further success followed in his second season in the form of the UEFA Super Cup and the FIFA Club World Cup. And while Chelsea would struggle for the following seasons, Silva continued to a consistent performer, who was crowned the player of the year before 2022/23 and became the oldest goal scorer ever in November 2023 of the club.
Silva has made his club 15 times in the Brazilian series A and four times in the Copa Libertadores in the Brazil in the Brazilian Serie A Homecoming. The 40-year-old has made four performances so far in the 2025 season.
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