In what was an eventful week for Thiago Silva, he emerged from it with his head held high for his magnificent performances both on and off the pitch.
By Declan Whooley
The Brazilian defender had more than enough on his plate ahead of the Champions League quarter-final clash with Barcelona before Joey Barton did what he does best by stoking the fires on Twitter, with his tweets ranging from questioning the player’s ability and transfer fee, to far more provocative comments about his masculinity.
It was pretty distasteful stuff from the Marseilles midfielder, but the former AC Milan player did not take the bait and resorted to doing his talking on the pitch. And what a performance it was.
PSG knew that they had to take something from the first leg at home to have any hope at the Nou Camp and began brightly, which made Leo Messi’s goal on the stroke of half-time all the more difficult to swallow.
The second-half was a master-class in defending from the Brazilian who demonstrated why the Parisien club forked out €42 million to make him the second most expensive defender of all-time last summer.
His positioning and awareness of the attackers around him, of which the Catalans have no shortage, saw him stand out above of all others on the pitch, quite an achievement for a defensive player in an arena with some of the most gifted attacking players in the current game.
A towering presence all night
It made Barton’s tweets look all the more ridiculous, though he has been summoned by the French Football Federation to explain his comments.
Despite claims of being injury-prone, Silva has missed only one Champions League game all season and while he has sat out nearly half the league games, with performances like that, he is still more than worth his weight in gold for the big games.
He could do nothing about the second Barcelona goal, but the injury-time equaliser has renewed hope that PSG just might pull off a major shock at the Nou Camp.
It is still a long shot, and Silva will be even busier in the return leg. Silva would take a repeat performance of the last time he played at the famous stadium, when he scored a late equaliser for AC Milan in a 2-2 draw.
Our guess is his PSG colleagues would welcome that outcome too.
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