Bernardo Silva (S.L. Benfica)

 

Name: Bernardo Mota Veiga de Carvalho e Silva
Nationality: Portugal
Age: 1994-08-10 (19 years old)
Position: Attacking Midfielder
Foot preference: Left
Height: 173 cm
Weight: 62 kg

Stats:

Benfica:

Benfica Youth Academy: From 2007 to 2013
Benfica U19: 2011/2012 and 2012/2013 (league winner)
Benfica B: 2013/2014 with 7 games (571 minutes) and a goal

National Team:

Portugal U-19: 2012/2013 with 7 games (563 minutes) and 2 goals in the Euro U-19.

Portugal U-21 2013/2014 with 1 game (20 minutes)

My opinion:

I am glad I waited some time before making this post. Not that I ever doubted Bernardo’s potential or quality but it’s good to see that he is being recognized as one of the best Portuguese players to come. He is now one of the 3 best young players from Benfica, alongside with Cavaleiro and Cancelo but also got called to the U-21 national team, at the age of 19.

Bernardo Silva is one of those players who made a great Euro U-19. This is not just my opinion but FIFA’s too, he was consider to be one of the 10 players from the competition that people should watch, and of course, expect great things and great careers.

As said before, he is one of the biggest talents that got out of Benfica’ academy these last few years and in my opinion he is the best player of the U-19 team last season.  He was the key for Benfica’s success and the U-19 Portuguese title.  Benfica did it because of the articulation of Bernardo’s skills and the fast, strong and talented forwards that the team had.

What are those skills?

I have to be honest, I have problems with the word “gifted” and for this reason, I will never say that a player is naturally gifted. But what I can say is that players like Bernardo Silva have a special ball control, the ball is “nicer” to players like him and they can do what they want with the ball. I say this often but for Bernardo there are no flaws when it comes to touch a football ball. He can dribble, even in small spaces and that is his main skill, pass, cross and shoot. Usually these kinds of players have not a great strike but that’s not the case for Bernardo, he can shoot from distance and scores this way.

Another big upside for him is that he knows his stature and knows how to use it. What often happens is, players of his kind play very well in the U-19 Portuguese league, look like amazing players but, then go to the B team and play in the second division, and lose the spark and hype.  It is very easy to understand this, in the youth league, the size differential is not big, in another hand, the skill differential is. This way, a lot of players look to be good and have potential. But the Portuguese second division is a physical league, a league where there are a lot of veterans but also a lot physical players, players who like physical contact and a good healthy “fight”. When playing this type of matches, players need to adapt, not that they have to hide but they will need to avoid contact in order to be successful. And Bernardo Silva does it at the highest level, continues to impress and is not caught in physical plays, where he would lose more than win.

I would only think about one small flaw, he could be quicker deciding. He is quick recognizing the opponent defense and destroying it but he could be quicker when distributing the ball and taking god decisions (he does it at a high percentage).

It is all for now, it will be interesting to follow his development. I really believe in this Portuguese generation (17yo-20yo) and for this reason I just hope he can be what we all wish and need (if you are a Benfica fan or Portuguese) him to be.

Just as a conclusion, he should be in the first team next year.