The Porto player who dreams of Portugal and wants to stop FC Porto
«FC Porto is a very special club for me. My father is a big fan of Porto and I have family in a small village 25 minutes from Porto. It will be a special game, of course. I was also a fan of the club when I was younger… well, I still am, but a little less now.”
There are days in a footballer’s life when the heart has to stay outside the pitch.
And this Wednesday, the heart of Damien da Silva, Lyon’s 33-year-old defender, will have to stay there by the Estádio do Dragão stand.
But at least you’ll have company.
Porto Porto fans can stay by the side of the family, they will certainly be by the family’s side, they will certainly be by the family’s side, certainly, they will shorten the side of the family, parish, parish, travel, between, Vila Nova Maria, to the player, that this year, who will conceive the heart of FC Porto in the round of 16 of the Europa League.
It is possible that the father of the 3-year-old there is difficult 3. But Damien believes that the blood ties will be at least a little stronger.
“In these games, I think my father comes to me. He doesn’t think so, but he believes so», believed more, in an interview made by Lyon, he has no support from other family members.
«I have an uncle from Benfica and another from Sporting. And the kids will follow their parents’ clubs. That’s why my uncles and cousins, who are from Benfica, will definitely go to Sporting de Lyon. Because I play for the club », he added.
Well, who is this Porto native born in Tance, near Bordeaux, who arrived at Lyon this season and who still dreams of the Portuguese national team?
From training with Adrien at Bordé to falling into the fifth division
Despite having done almost all of his training at Bordeaux, the club in which he started years ago and in which he was a colleague of Adrien Silva before the Portuguese international returned to Portugal, Damien da Silva’s career did not start at the top.
Far from it.
After having excelled in the younger ranks, in the last year of training, Damien thought that the dream of professionalism would die soon.
“When I was released, I told myself that my dream of being a footballer was over. Bordeaux officials told me openly that I didn’t have the level to play in Ligue 1 – which I think is absurd to say to a teenager. I fell from very high”, he admitted in an interview with Sofoot.com, in 2020.
Disillusionment, however, quickly. Because the pleasure of playing football spoke louder.
It is true that the under-17 and under-19 caps for the French national team were of little use to him when he entered adult football. But they showed that there was potential.
The senior descendant path of the Portuguese-descendant, son of a Portuguese father and French mother, began at the modest Chamois Niortais, in the third tier, the club where he completed his. And in which he was happy.
“We were a bunch of friends who played football and won games. What more can you ask for?”, he would ask, years later, already professional and playing in Ligue 1, in an interview with the website of the club in the city of Niort.
“It was a real human adventure. My best football recordings are from that time. We played to win, but we never forgot the pleasure of playing. And playing well. And that can sometimes be lost in professional football”, he added.
After his seasons at the club, Damien was hired by Châteauroux, four seasons in the division, but he lived through all the moments of his career and considered football, as the second toughest in the interview with Sofoot.
«I felt transparent in the group, that made me feel bad and I wanted to leave football at a high level. I was adapted to 5th division, playing with 17 year olds, when I was 23 and I thought that was not for me, so I would have to do something else with my life».
At the end of this period, however, a new invitation to the third division emerged. Rouen opened its doors to the Portuguese-descendant who lived through all three seasons regularly to return to the French second division, with Clermont.
Suddenly, Ligue 1, the Champions League… and Literature in between
At 26, despite having built a growing career, Damien da Silva no longer imagined himself flying in football.
He had learned to live “one day at a time.” And the cliché, step by step, took him to the top.
Almost like a story out of a movie. Or a book. From a book.
Damien da Silva is more into books. Writing is the passion that he combines with football and in the lowest moments in terms of sports, even a bachelor’s degree in literature that he combines with classes in… Portuguese.
And he guarantees: if he hadn’t been a footballer, he would have bet on sports journalism.
But it was a footballer. After the hardships of the beginning of his career, from the age of 26 onwards, the path has always been going up.
The defense was just a bunch and, contrary to other expectations, reached Ligue1 at 27, through Caen’s door.
«Hope to arrive at a planned head, but not thought of a corner of my head. I started to face life step by step», he would assume, already as a Lyon player, explaining.
«When Rouen, this possibility did not occur to me for an instant. If at that age you are in the National [teceira divisão]for some reason it will be.”
Some serious reason. But there is no lack of quality, as there was no main French scale.
After four years of defending Caen, da Silva made the leap to 2018, and it was assumed in the team that at that time Ren reached the time when the Coupe de France reached the time when Dam reached the times of the Coupe de France and round of 16 of the Europa League
The following year, the third place in Ligue1 was worth the historic qualification for the Champions League, a competition in which the Portuguese-descendant emerged as team captain.
For the rest, after the three seasons with Rennes, Lyon later agreed to recruit the player who, at the age of 33, finally arrived at one of the biggest clubs in France.
But he doesn’t want to stop there. And he has his own journey as inspiration.
“When I play less well or I feel less motivated for myself: ‘Hey, remember the past and move your ass!”, he assumed, to Sofoot.
Now, in his debut season, Damien has played 14 Ligue1 games, with whom he finished in 023. And in this season he will have the opportunity to fulfill a dream: playing for Dragão, against ‘FC Porto.
«José Fonte arrived late to the national team, I can still prolong that dream»
Football has always been present in Damien da Silva’s life and is, above all, on the side of his father’s family.
And the objective that still has to be accomplished is well identified in the mind of the Portuguese-descendant.
«My Portuguese family is now linked to football. My father is a football fanatic, my aunt is the coach of a women’s team, a cousin plays my futsal in Portugal, another has played in France, my stepmother has also played football… It’s a passion», described in the aforementioned interview with Sofoot.
“Every year, at the end of the season, I play a game with my family and friends. My mother organized the first one to surprise me and the tradition remained. Everyone plays: my cousins, my mother, everyone! And it’s fun to see the whole family playing football», he confided in the same interview.
Now, that strong connection to Portuguese football, in addition to making Damien a fan of FC Porto, as was written at the beginning of these lines, made him grow up to play with corners to his chest.
«I always lived for the national team because I lived in Portuguese references. My father is crazy about the national team and I grew up watching the games with him. That’s why I’d rather play for Portugal than France. I have always been a fan of the Portuguese style of play», he praised in another interview with France Bleu, in 2016.
And in the same way that the dream of reaching the top of French football was built step by step, the dream of one day being able to wear the Portugal jersey has not yet been abandoned, as he confessed more recently in a conversation with Luso França.
“If the opportunity presents itself, I want to seize it. I never hid that desire. I think about that from time to time, and I think it’s never too late. José Fonte arrived late to the national team, he is an example for me, and I believe I can get there too. He’s a great defender and a lot of people don’t understand why he hasn’t been called up before and that he can be the same for me”, he said.
The elimination against FC Porto could be, therefore, the ideal showcase for Damien da Silva to show himself to Fernando Santos and the Portuguese public.
So, perhaps, Damien da Silva’s heart will not be left out of the game at Dragão.
It’s just that if for Lyon qualifying for the quarter-finals is at stake, for Damien da Silva it could be much more.
And the career that failed to delete the work.
Would the Porto heart do it now?