Paris Saint-Germain defender Thiago Silva has revealed he has received various offers from Real Madrid and Barcelona during the course of his career.
Silva, 31, is regarded as one of the best defenders in the world and made a £30.8m switch from Milan to PSG in 2012.
However, the Brazil international has revealed he could have joined Madrid before leaving his homeland in 2008 and also had discussions with Barcelona during his three-year stop in Italy.
“Before going to Milan I had contract with people from Madrid. When I was at Milan I had talks with Barca but details didn’t materialise. I asked about some things that were important to me and they weren’t answered,” Spanish paper AS quote him as saying.
“Sandro Rosell was the president. Suddenly I saw it wasn’t a good situation for me. All the talks went well and with respect to Sandro, but I didn’t have any option.”
Silva is expected to line up against Madrid in the Champions League on Wednesday where both sides will be looking to seize the initiative in their group having won both of their opening two matches up until this point.
The Brazilian centre-back is one of the most accurate passers in Europe. In fact, no player to have started at least three league games has a better pass success rate than Silva (94.1%) across Europe’s top five leagues, accentuating his statistically calculated strength of ‘passing’.
For more stats on Thiago Silva, click here to visit his WhoScored player page
