Chelsea defender Thiago Silva is one of the game’s greatest veterans. At 39 years and one month he is the Premier League’s oldest used player this season, and is just under 18 months off breaking Teddy Sheringham’s record for the oldest ever Premier League outfielder.
Now, in an interview with the Guardian, the defender has revealed two of his secrets: a fleet of personal staff, and being inspired by Paolo Maldini. Silva met Il Capitano when joining AC Milan in 2009, the final months of a career that spanned 24 years.
"Meeting Maldini sparked something in me," Silva says. "I was 24 when I arrived and looking at him made me think: 'The way I look after myself – I don't drink, I don't smoke, I don't miss my sleep – means I can reach Maldini's level. Age level, I mean. Of course not performance level. There is only one Maldini. He certainly changed my mentality.
"Not just him, but Alessandro Nesta as well. Nesta was a teacher for me in training. He had just come back from an operation, which made it a bit difficult for him, but he had me who could run around and help him. He told me where to go and I’d go. I did it with great pleasure because I always liked his way of being, his way of training and especially his quality. I realised that by playing with him I was going to learn a lot."
The Brazilian joined Fluminense as a child before moving to Europe in 2004. Signing for Porto and then Dynamo Moscow, his career was suspended when he was diagnosed with tuberculosis and hospitalised for six months. Silva came close to dying and unofficially retired from football, returning upon his recovery to start over again.
Now, having notched almost 800 career games, Silva has to live and train at a different level to his younger peers to follow in the footsteps of legends.
"I do the post-training recovery here at the club and two hours of rest in a hyperbaric (pressure) chamber at home. So it's much more recovery than actual work these days. Less is more."
All the while Silva employs a team of staff to support his schedule, seven in total: a doctor, a nutritionist, a physiotherapist, an agent, a lawyer, a press manager and a personal coach. He describes this as an investment.
"But nowadays, young people, many of them, see it as an expense, a waste of money to have someone on their side. They think they're throwing money away by having a professional helping them. I think it’s quite the opposite: it's an investment."
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