David Silva's boots are made of leather. Finally hung up this week, later than most had imagined and earlier than anyone wanted, they came in all sorts of colours -- blue and black and orange and yellow and white -- but one thing never changed. Look closely enough, and they're like something from another time, back when it all began. The manufacturers could do whatever they wanted with the design -- he didn't care much about that -- just don't mess with the material. No plastics, no synthetics, no gimmicks, no nonsense.
All that mattered was the feel, the ball. The touch. And, boy, was Silva's touch good. Always just so.
- Stream on ESPN+: LaLiga, Bundesliga, more (U.S.)
Every pass perfect, unadorned, there was a kind of gentle charm about the way he played, a lightness to him. And yet he was tough too, a competitor as well as a craftsman over 19 years. Most of those were spent in the Premier League -- there is a statue of him outside Manchester City's ground -- so when he returned to Spain, aged 34, it was like he was being discovered all over again, a gift: the chance to enjoy him here too, to welcome him home and embrace him at last. To make up for lost time, aware that there might not be much left.
Watching Silva play was special. Not just for Real Sociedad fans, but for everyone. For those who played with him, especially. Talk to them, and every conversation seems to end the same way: And he's a great guy, too.
Muchas gracias...fútbol pic.twitter.com/HoB6TPojAd
— David Silva (@21LVA) July 27, 2023
Toward the end of last season, Silva came over to the camera -- not a place he likes much -- for a post-match interview. Rather than start with a question, the interview began with a request: "Please don't retire." Silva knew he would have to one day, he said, but he was enjoying this and so he was going to go on. A few days later, it was announced that, at 37, he had renewed for another season, a decision celebrated by everyone and one he had deserved. Supposedly coming to an end when he signed, he was instead heading into a fourth season and back into the Champions League, too.
Now, though, a ligament injury in his right knee -- something with which he has lived for a while -- has forced Silva to retire. At his age, it was time to go. Just when he, the last man left from the greatest generation Spain has ever had, was universally embraced for perhaps the first time, enjoyed by everyone. "We would have liked it to happen differently, but we hold onto the football you gave us," the club's statement said.
"The way it has happened is a real pity, and very cruel," says Pablo Zabaleta, who played with him at Man City. "He was playing well at Real Sociedad and it's sad."
It ends in the same province as it started, the smallest in Spain: Guipuzkoa. Silva turned up at second division Eibar on loan as a teenager, his first seniour football; his career closes at La Real in San Sebastian at 37, almost 900 games later, across five teams and his country.
Born in the Canary Islands, in the same tiny town as former Spain international Juan Carlos Valeron, he had joined Valencia at 14, but he was far from home. Eibar is 1,265 miles and a world away. Average temperature on Gran Canaria never drops below 70 degrees, and there are 2,998 hours of sunshine a year; in Eibar, it never goes above 70 degrees. It was perfect.
"Talent like Silva? Not many have that"
"We were short of players and I remember talking to Toni [Ruiz], the fitness coach, and Mendi [Jose Luis Mendilibar, the coach] and they were saying: 'There's this lad from the Canary Islands who Valencia are offering us,'" says Antonio Karmona, a teammate at Eibar. "And I must admit, I said to Mendi: 'A 19-year-old, Canarian, to Eibar?!' And on top of that, he's small and slight. And he said, 'Yes, yes, they tell us he's very good. Toni knows him. And he's going to sign.' I thought: 'OK, well, let's see.'"
"We were a tough team, very physical. And this kid turns up: quiet, hardly said a word, shy. And then you see him in the first training session and you realise he's another level, totally different. He wasn't a big talker, but he got on with everything and everyone, he never hid, he always wanted the ball. I think Eibar was good for him: sessions with lots of intensity, a lot of physical contact. He thought much quicker than the rest, so it was hard to reach him to make a challenge, but at the same time he never shirked. And with the group's support, he grew," says Karmona.
Eibar missed out on a first ever promotion to the topflight by a single place; Silva went on loan again to Celta Vigo for the 2005-06 season.
"We didn't know much about him," says Esteban Suarez, the goalkeeper at Balaidos. "He was very shy, very quiet. Until he had a ball at his feet." Celta coach Fernando Vazquez described his task during training sessions in simple terms: get a chair, sit down and watch Silva play.
"We had a really good team, lots of internationals, players with far more of a name than him, but our play revolved around him," Esteban says. "You see him in the dressing room and your attention isn't drawn to him, but then get him out on the pitch and it's different. He had Fernando Vazquez as coach, who had been a qualified teacher, and whose way of working was very didactic -- and that was good for him. That kind of player benefits from coach like that who can advise, mould you, guide you, teach. And look what he became."
A world champion. One of the best players in Premier League history. And Celta's key man.
"There was a good group, so there was no reticence towards a kid coming and taking the ball," Esteban says. "Anyway, you have to treat good players well -- and you give them the ball. He was alert, alive, had young players like Jorge Larena, Jesus Perera, and Jonathan Aspas around him, and was a good guy: the same kind of profile as Valeron. Not a joker, but the kind of person you warm to: There's a goodness about him.
"He was clever: He didn't have a big body, but he used it very well. People say: 'No, football is physical.' Sure, but you can 'buy' that. You go to the gym and you can build the physical side of the game. The talent? Ha! That's different. Talent like Silva? Not many have that. In Vigo, we enjoyed him so much. The year he played for us we reached Europe; the year after he left, we went down."
"He was a youth teamer at Valencia, and he had played well when he was away on loan," says Valencia teammate Santi Canizares. "He comes back and you can see it in preseason: He's going to be central to us." If the club weren't entirely sure -- they had offered to move him to Celta -- the squad soon were. "It's a surprise to see him train like that. You think: He's extraordinary, he's going to play every day for us. There's no way he can go out on loan again. Quique [Sanchez Flores, the coach] saw that. But, then, you couldn't not see it."
"From that first day, his debut in the Carranza, it was obvious," fullback Curro Torres says. "And when he retired he was still playing the exact same way. He had his dad, Fernando, there working for the club too -- he was another great guy -- and David was a great professional, a proper teammate, a joy to see and work with every day. What he has achieved speaks for itself, and above all I would highlight him as a person."
Soon, the father-and-son pair were rolling into the Etihad, altering the place forever.
Silva a great among greats
"He changed the history of the club," Zabaleta says. "When David arrived, he put City among the great teams. There were a lot of people who doubted him, because they thought he was a player who physically might not be able to cope with the pace and intensity of the Premier League, that maybe the amount of physical contact wouldn't be good for him. But far from it. As soon as the ball rolled, you saw. You couldn't get it off him; he never lost it. When he came, that was when City started to compete for important titles.
"You see him with Spain, Valencia and it's amazing. You watch his goals, his plays and it's truly magnificent. I would say he's in the best three players I have worked with, without doubt. Maybe Messi is a case apart, but I would put him right up there. I enjoyed every training session with him, the games, those technical details. Roberto Mancini [head coach] would put him on the right, coming inside, and I would always be looking at that run into attack because I knew he was so good at filtering the pass through. He was a player who made others better, everyone benefited."
Eventually, for sure. Although for a long time, it was hard to avoid the suspicion that it counted against him. That no one was making enough of a noise about him, fighting his corner. He didn't shout, draw attention to himself. In Spain, there were others to compete for football's affections -- Andres Iniesta, Xavi, Fernando Torres, David Villa, Iker Casillas, Sergio Ramos -- and he had left at 23, his best days given to City. Yet, he still won the World Cup, two Euros in 2008 and 2012, and in Spain too they would come to love him. A little late, perhaps, but they would. Four league titles and a statue later, he returned, aged 34. It turned out he was no retiree, easing off.
"The impact he had ..." goalkeeper Miguel Angel Moya says, the pause almost as eloquent as the words. "I've played at a lot of teams with loads of players, and when people ask who the best player I have ever played with I always say: Andres Iniesta and David Silva.
"So many teams, so many players and I always said him because that ability to make difficult things look easy is probably the hardest thing of all. When you're at the ground, up in the stands, or watching on television, you see a play, a pass, the logical next move, the control, the right ball. It looks easy from home, but down there it's not. And yet, there are a few special players who have that gift that means they play that pass and you think: 'Yeah, that was the one.'"
He turned up as a World Cup winner, twice a European champion, one of the all-time greats in England, but you wouldn't know it. A generational talent, Silva could have been winding down or puffed his chest up, but that didn't happen either. "In the dressing room, despite everything he achieved, he had a mid- or low profile," Moya says. "And that was one of the reasons why he was so respected. He never did anything extravagant, never wanted to be centre of attention."
The way he played meant that in the end, it was inevitable. "I feel proud that he plays for us: For me it's a privilege to have a player like that," Real Sociedad coach Imanol Alguacil says. Asked what he says to Silva, Alguacil added simply: "Thanks."
That feeling was shared by supporters: There was a kind of disbelief that they had the chance to watch him play for their team. For the whole country, this was an unexpected second chance, and they held it tight. Maybe the first time they hadn't realised quite how good he was; this time they did. Few expected him to retire this late, to play this well, but it ended up being premature, too. And it hurt precisely because it had been so good.
Canizares says, "Spain had a generation of incredible footballers, so perhaps Silva was just another one, but to even be part of that generation is difficult. And because he played abroad, maybe people didn't get the chance to enjoy his football as much. But at Valencia, we knew how good he was. Playing alongside legends allowed him to win many things with the national team; the problem is that maybe he stood out less than he could have done if there hadn't been so many greats around him."
He was himself, he didn't change. He played the same way, was the same way. Wore the same boots; they might have looked different, but they weren't. Let others make a fuss, stand out. Let me play. That kid in Eibar was that man in San Sebastian.
"It took a while, but he is one of the greats of Spanish football," Karmona says. "And working as a scout I have travelled a lot and everywhere I have gone over this last season, he has been applauded. It's late, but his value has finally been fully recognised here. I was 37, he was 19, when he came to Eibar. For all of us in that group, for Mendi, who took the decision to bring this young Canarian to Eibar, it makes us proud to see him grow, to have played with a player of that quality -- and that human quality too. And it's a pity that football wasn't fair to him at the end."
Esteban smiles. "I played with David Silva. That's pretty cool. There are people you feel especially pleased for when they go on to be a success, and he's one. I saw him not long ago. We went to watch him play and had a bit of a chat with him before the game: the same normal guy after everything he has won, the same values. He had on these old shin pads."
And leather boots.