When you spend £35 million on a centre back, as PSG did to acquire the services of Thiago Silva, you would expect that player to be of the finest in world, if not their generation, and the Brazilian certainly fits that criteria.
Simply put, Silva is the physical embodiment of a wrecking ball, a centre back so compact and commanding that even though he stands at six foot he is able to dominate games from his position.
I am a new passenger on the Silva bandwagon. I caught glimpses of his career in AC Milan and the eye-watering sum PSG paid for him caught my attention but it wasn’t until PSG’s Champions League quarter final tie with Barcelona in Paris last month that I finally woke up and smelt the coffee, so to speak.
Silva’s man of the match performance was one of the best games I have seen a centre back have, which is saying something considering the French team conceded twice. In all fairness, though, Dani Alves will never play a better ball in his career than the one that set up Lionel Messi for Barca’s first goal.
The new rich elite in football, namely PSG and Man City, can sometimes be tricky affairs for managers because of all the superstar names in one squad but PSG manager Carlo Ancelotti definitely made the correct decision when awarded the captain’s armband to Silva.