Football Player's Biography 7: David Silva

Full name	David Josué Jiménez Silva
Date of birth	8 January 1986 (1986-01-08) (age 25)
Place of birth	Arguineguín, Spain
Height	1.70 m (5 ft 7 in)
Playing position	Midfielder / Winger

David Josué Jiménez Silva (Spanish pronunciation: [daˈβið xoˈswe xiˈmeneθ ˈsilβa]; born 8 January 1986) is a Spanish footballer who plays for Manchester City in England, and the Spanish national team.
Silva is capable of playing on the wing, as a traditional number 10 and sometimes as a supporting striker. He spent six years of his professional career with La Liga side Valencia CF, appearing in more than 150 official games and winning one Copa del Rey, before moving in 2010 to Manchester City.
A Spanish international since the age of 20, he was a member of the squads that won both the Euro 2008 and 2010 World Cup.

Childhood and early career

Silva was born in Arguineguín, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Canary Islands to Fernando Jiménez, a former municipal police officer and eventually responsible for the safety of the Valencia CF stadium, and Eva Silva. His father is Canarian and his mother is of Asian descent. He has two younger siblings, sister Natalia and brother Nando.
Silva began playing football in the youth team of UD San Fernando, near Maspalomas. When he was 14, he received an offer to become a youth player at Valencia CF, which he accepted. He stayed in Valencia's youth set-up until he was 17.

Club career

Valencia

Silva made his professional début in 2004–05, with Segunda División's SD Eibar, on loan from Valencia, playing 35 league games and scoring on five occasions. In the following season, he was again loaned, this time to Celta de Vigo, where he played 34 matches, scoring four goals. After two late substitute appearances, the first in a 2–0 home win over Málaga CF on 28 August 2005, Silva finished as an undisputed starter as the Galician side reached the UEFA Cup straight from the second-tier.
Silva returned to Valencia in the 2006 summer, proceeding to become an automatic first-choice despite his young age (20). In two seasons combined, he only missed six matches while netting 14 goals (his first coming on 5 November 2006 in a 1–1 draw at RCD Espanyol). In August 2008, he extended his contract by a further five years, amidst interest of several Premier League teams.^[1]

After not having appeared in the first three months of 2008–09 due to a chronic ankle ailment,^[2] Silva returned to the call-ups in mid-December. On 3 January 2009, he scored twice in a 3–1 home win over Atlético de Madrid,^[3] still contributing with 19 matches (four goals) as the Che qualified for the Europa League.
In the 2009–10 season, Silva scored a career-best eight goals, as Valencia finished in third position and returned to the UEFA Champions League. On 15 April 2010, he scored a brace against Athletic Bilbao for a 2–0 home win,^[4] adding three assists in the 4–4 thriller at SV Werder Bremen, for the Europa League's round of 16.^[5]

Manchester City

On 30 June 2010, Manchester City announced that they had reached an agreement with Valencia over the transfer of Silva and that he would join the club on a four-year deal, prior to the start of the 2010–11 season.^[6]^[7] On 14 July, the Premier League side completed the signing; the player was awarded the 21 shirt.^[8]^[9]^[10] Manchester City had previously tried to sign Silva and his Valencia team-mate David Villa in 2008, but were put off when Valencia put a £135m combined price tag on both players.^[11]
On 14 August 2010, Silva made his league début, in a 0–0 draw against Tottenham Hotspur at White Hart Lane.^[12] On 16 September, he scored his first goal for the club, eight minutes into the Europa League group match against FC Red Bull Salzburg.^[13] He scored his first league goal on 17 October against Blackpool, netting City's third goal in a 3–2 away win.^[14] In the 3-1 home win in the Europa League against Lech Poznań, he set up two goals for Emmanuel Adebayor.^[15] His performances have seen him win three Player of the Month awards from Manchester City in a row for October, November and December.^[16]

He made another assist slipping through Adam Johnson for Manchester City's third in a 3-1 away win against West Ham United.^[17]He also scored the equalising goal on 12 February 2011 in a 2-1 loss to rivals Manchester United. He then scored in the F.A cup against Aston Villa from twenty yards out. On 5 March 2011, Silva scored the only goal in Manchester City's win against Wigan Athletic F.C.

International career

Silva first represented Spain in the 2003 FIFA U-17 World Championship in Finland, scoring three goals. In 2006, he became an under-21 international and scored four goals during the 2005 FIFA World Youth Championship; this was enough to earn him joint-fourth place in the goal ranking, alongside Italian striker Graziano Pellè.
Silva made his senior international début in the 1–0 friendly home defeat to Romania on 15 November 2006, and continued to receive call-ups to the side after good contributions in his first games. On 22 August 2007, he scored his first two goals for Spain, netting twice in a 3–2 friendly win versus Greece, and was then called-up to the squad of 23 for UEFA Euro 2008.
In the semi-finals game versus Russia, Silva scored the third goal for Spain after a quick counter-attack in which Fàbregas delivered a low cross, and he sent the ball into Igor Akinfeev's goal with his left foot.^[18] In the final, he was involved in an incident with Germany's Lukas Podolski. After he pulled Podolski to the ground, the German approached Silva, which resulted in an angry exchange of words and a coming together of heads that the referee decided not to punish. Shortly afterward, Spanish coach Luis Aragonés substituted Silva for Santi Cazorla in an attempt to calm the tensions.

After appearing regularly during the 2010 FIFA World Cup qualification stages – Spain won all ten fixtures – Silva was also picked for the squad for the finals in South Africa. His participation would be however a small one, as the national team won the tournament: he started in the first match, a 0–1 group stage defeat against Switzerland, then played the last four minutes of the 1–0 win against Germany in the semifinals.
On 11 August 2010, during an international friendly with Mexico, Silva scored two minutes into second-half injury time, ending the game with a 1–1 draw.^[20]
In an Euro 2012 qualifier against Liechtenstein on 3 September 2010, Silva scored after 62 minutes, in a 4–0 away win.^[21] The following month, in the same competition, he scored through a rare header, as the national team downed Lithuania in Salamanca (3–1).
In Spain's first match for 2011, an international friendly against Colombia on Feb 9, he came off the bench to score the game's only goal with just four minutes remaining, helping Spain to a hard-fought 1-0 win.