Premier League
Identical twin brothers Rafael and Fabio da Silva open up on Cristiano Ronaldo influencing their joining Man United as teenagers
n the lockdown summer of 2020, two twin brothers would run together in the French countryside. Every day for five weeks. Thirty five consecutive days.
One of them, Fabio da Silva, was recovering from a dreadful knee injury suffered playing for Nantes. The other, Rafael, was there simply because he could not bear to think of his brother suffering alone.
‘We don’t hide for anyone,’ Fabio told Sportsmail this week. ‘We have a very, very special bond. To know he travelled with his family just for me. It didn’t just motivate me, it saved me.’
It has always been this way. From the age of five, the Da Silvas played for the same junior team near their home in Petropolis, north of Rio.
When they were 11, they lived together in a dormitory at Fluminense’s academy, billeted with bigger, older boys.
‘For the first three weeks, my brother cried every night,’ said Rafael. ‘At times I cried, too. It was hard. We just had to stick together, as always.’
The Da Silva twins are known in England for their time playing together for Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United. First spotted by the club aged 12, they arrived in Manchester when they were still only 17.
For both full-backs, the path to the first team was barred by Gary Neville, Patrice Evra, John O’Shea and Wes Brown. Neville is said to have uttered: ‘Rafael has been bought to retire me’.
Fabio found the challenge and the environment harder than his brother. He believes his innate nervousness stopped him achieving all that he may have. He suffered anxiety before matches.
Yet he played in United’s Champions League final defeat against Barcelona at Wembley in 2011 and won the Premier League. Rafael – the youngest Brazilian to play Premier League football – won the title three times.
‘In Brazil our story was seen as incredible,’ smiled Fabio on a Zoom call from France. ‘Not many young players went to England from our home like they do now.
‘But even though we both played for Brazil a few times (they have two caps each), I think we are now remembered more in Manchester.’
‘I love him because he set a very big example for young boys like us. That is what he will do for the players this second time.
‘The things I took from Cristiano are for life. The players about to play with him now at United should be thankful every day.’
The Da Silvas’ story is gently told in their newly-published book. The Sunshine Kids reads like a fairytale at times. Nevertheless, the challenges presented by their careers were real.
For Fabio, his route post-United to France came via spells at QPR, Cardiff and Middlesbrough. Rafael stayed at Old Trafford after Ferguson’s retirement in 2013 only to suffer the reigns of David Moyes and Louis van Gaal.
‘Van Gaal hated instinct, hated one-touch football,’ Rafael says in the book. ‘He slowed us down so much our football was unrecognisable. He wanted no heart and all head. It felt like an army camp.’
Having spent five years at Lyon, Rafael is now a free agent after a short stay in Turkey. The fondness for United remains.
Both players name Rio Ferdinand – who Rafael called ‘the professor’ – Darren Fletcher and Michael Carrick as formative influences.
Less fondness is felt for Carlos Tevez. ‘He didn’t respect me and the way he spoke to me on the field wasn’t nice,’ says Rafael. Michael Owen, meanwhile, seemed ‘more interested in horses than football’.
On their very first day at training in January 2008, Fabio looped the ball over the head of Paul Scholes completely by accident, a ‘trick’ greeted wildly by a whooping Ferdinand.
‘At that moment I really thought I was in a dream,’ laughed Fabio.
Ferguson, for his part, loved both boys to a degree that he has penned the foreword to their book and, when Rafael returned to Old Trafford in the Champions League with Istanbul Basaksehir last November, he asked to see him after the final whistle.
‘He just wanted to see that I was OK,’ recalled Rafael. ‘We didn’t talk about football, just life. I was still in my boots and kit. What a man.’
Not that Ferguson could always tell the two Da Silvas apart. Rafael used to slip on his brother’s wedding ring just to confuse their manager but soon realised that was not necessary. Often, in serious moments, the wrong twin would find themselves on the end of a Ferguson rollocking.
‘Even after five or six years he never could tell us apart,’ laughed Fabio this week.
‘The boys – Fletch, Rio – they could. But the manager? Never.’
The early months at Manchester were spent in a small house with their parents, Laurinda and Jose Maria, near United’s Carrington training ground off the M60. Hardly footballer chic.
But during their time there, they grew from boys to men. They became serious competitors.
At Liverpool, Steven Gerrard despised them, describing them to Wayne Rooney as a ‘pair of p*****’.
Fabio and Rafael laugh about that now. Equally, they recognise the standards to which they were introduced under Ferguson. Fabio saw precious little of that at other clubs, while Rafael saw things begin to slide under Moyes and Van Gaal.
‘I think that’s the big difference, you know,’ said Fabio.
‘The talent was still in these clubs but they didn’t have the commitment or the work rate.
‘At Cardiff I worked for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. I love Ole. He had been reserve manager for me at United. He is a nice guy and I hated it because I felt some players took advantage of that.
‘Me and my brother always had a desire but also we learned a lot from Cristiano and Fletcher, Carrick, Patrice. They each did it differently but they all worked so hard.
‘I achieved quite a few things but I didn’t do more because – I won’t say I was weak – but I was not brave enough. I never played free.
‘My brother was different. He went for the shirt. But maybe I never felt I was really equal to the others.’
The Da Silva twins are only 31 and have some playing time ahead of them. Fabio is currently back in the Nantes first team.
Beyond that, they may coach. The vague plan is for Rafael, already doing his badges, to be manager and his brother his assistant.
The football has been fundamental to the last 20 years but, perhaps more than that, it is the journey they have made together that they value.
When Fabio left United for QPR a week shy of his 22nd birthday, it was the first time the two of them had ever been apart.
All of which begs the question: would one of them ever have contemplated coming to United without the other?
‘It’s very hard to say,’ replied Fabio. ‘Once, my brother had some trials while I was with the national team under 15s. Even for two weeks apart, it was very difficult for us.’
During his spell at Cardiff, Fabio would regularly drive 200 miles to Manchester to see Rafael, often with his heavily pregnant wife.
To this day, a shared purpose remains. To provide for their parents back home, to make them proud. They were housekeepers as the boys grew up, working seven days a week. To repay and care for them has always been the focus.
‘Every time we played together in the United team my dad and mum were nearly crying,’ smiled Fabio.
‘Where we come from, if you went there you would realise how incredible it was for us to do what we did. It was all about getting out, to help our mum and dad. To stop them working.
‘If you had told us back then that all this would happen in our life, we would say no. Everything we did is incredible. We never dreamed of any of this.’
Both twins think the modern United will be OK under Solskjaer.
‘He will need a title win, though,’ laughed Fabio.
The current United manager was part of the effort to integrate the young Brazilians back in 2008 and they have not forgotten that. Some things, though, they always did their own way.
After they became first-team players for example, the twins were allocated their own rooms on away trips. Eventually, Ferguson was alerted to the fact that one of them was not being used.
‘We are simple boys,’ smiled Fabio. ‘We didn’t need two rooms. They were massive! So we used to share.
‘We are brothers. We wanted to be together. I love that story. It shows exactly who we are.’
-Daily Mail
New signing Matthijs de Ligt grabbed his first goal for Manchester United while Marcus Rashford scored for the first time since March in a 3-0 Premier
League victory at Southampton on Saturday after a shaky start to the season.
Alejandro Garnacho added a late goal for Erik ten Hag’s side who started the day 14th in the standings after back-to-back losses. They now have six points from four matches while newly promoted Southampton remain without a point.
Southampton dominated early on but squandered a chance to take the lead in the 34th minute after United goalkeeper Onana saved Cameron Archer’s poor penalty, sparking an immediate shift in momentum at St Mary’s Stadium.
A minute later, De Ligt headed in a sumptuous ball from Bruno Fernandes after Christian Eriksen’s short corner.
“I think if you get three points from three games it’s not enough so there was some pressure, but I think today we played very well,” said De Ligt, a summer signing from Bayern Munich.
Rashford, who had gone 13 games without a goal, then ended his drought when he was left unmarked on the edge of the box to bend a diagonal shot in the far corner in the 41st.
Ten Hag had been criticised for starting Rashford but he has stuck by the much-maligned 26-year-old — who had not found the back of the net since United’s 2-0 win over Everton on March 9 — saying pre-game that Rashford needed only a goal or an assist and “then he will fly”.
“It’s very important,” the Dutchman said after the win. “It is so huge for him, for every striker, when the season starts you want to be on the scoring list. Now he has his first, I’m sure more will come.”
Archer’s penalty miss spoiled a stellar first league start for Southampton’s Tyler Dibling. The 18-year-old, who had scored for England’s Under-19 side in a loss to Germany four days earlier, drew the penalty when he dribbled at Diogo Dalot only to be taken down by the defender in the box.
That was the turning point, as the hosts were almost immediately punished for the miss but goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale tipped a low shot from Joshua Zirkzee just wide of the net.
“It was a turning point for us,” Onana said. “I’m happy for the guys, we had a great game, now we move on.”
What started as a solid afternoon for Southampton had a wretched ending as Russell Martin’s side failed to register a shot after the missed penalty and were reduced to 10 men in the 79th minute when defender Jack Stephens was sent off for a high tackle on Garnacho.
The Argentine forward smashed the ball in with almost the last kick of the game to seal the win for the visitors.
United finished with 20 shots to the home side’s six.
-Reuters
Arsenal face a daunting set of fixtures starting with a trip to Tottenham Hotspur in the Premier League, with influential midfielders sidelined this weekend, but Mikel Arteta’s side can take heart from their recent record in north London derbies.
Having been held to a draw by Brighton & Hove Albion in their last outing, Arsenal are two points off the pace after champions Manchester City and Liverpool had perfect starts.
Letting points slip in the past two campaigns has punished Arsenal in the title race. With City and Liverpool playing on Saturday, Arsenal could potentially be staring at a five-point gap ahead of Sunday’s short trip to face their neighbours.
Arsenal will wear their away kit in the derby for the first time in 38 years due to a colour clash but two men who will not be wearing their black strip are skipper Martin Odegaard and midfield partner Declan Rice.
While Odegaard is out for several weeks nursing an ankle injury sustained in Norway’s Nations League victory against Austria in midweek, Rice is suspended following a controversial red card against Brighton for kicking the ball away.
Form usually goes out of the window in north London derbies, which often produce spicy encounters, but Arsenal have had the upper hand in the last two seasons, winning three and drawing one of the last four league matches against Spurs.
The hosts also have injury worries with forwards Richarlison and Dominic Solanke plus defender Micky van de Ven missing their 2-1 loss at Newcastle United, though the latter two are expected to return.
FORCED ROTATION
With Arsenal’s midweek Champions League game at Atalanta and a trip to City the following weekend, Arteta will be forced to rotate his squad or even change his formation.
Since new signing Mikel Merino is also injured, he may have to play the versatile Kai Havertz in a deeper role. Brazil forward Gabriel Jesus has also been sidelined, while striker Eddie Nketiah moved to Crystal Palace on deadline day.
“He could play Leandro Trossard or even Raheem Sterling, but that’s a big ask for a winger to play up front at a new club,” Sky Sports pundit and former Arsenal forward Paul Merson said, adding the club should have signed another striker.
“You might get away with it for two or three games playing a false nine, but you wouldn’t want to go seven, eight, nine games with one,” he added.
The weekend kicks off with 14th-placed Manchester United looking to put their early season troubles behind them as they travel to promoted Southampton, who are without a point so far.
Erik ten Hag is in his third season as United boss but a 3-0 humbling by Liverpool — whose manager Arne Slot was taking charge of just his third game — rang alarm bells among the Old Trafford faithful although the Dutchman has the club’s backing.
Leaders City host sixth-placed Brentford, while second-placed Liverpool, the only Premier League team yet to concede a goal this season, welcome Nottingham Forest.
Ipswich Town travel to third-placed Brighton seeking a first win following their return to the top flight, while bottom side Everton, with three straight losses, travel to Aston Villa.
-Reuters
Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta has signed a new long-term contract at the Emirates Stadium, the Premier League title chasers announced on Sept 12.
The Gunners said in a statement that the 42-year-old Spaniard, who has reportedly agreed a three-year deal, “has been a key figure in re-establishing us as a force back at the top of English and European football”.
Arteta, who became Arsenal boss in late 2019, said he felt “extremely proud”.
“I feel extremely lucky to work every single day with good people and the ambition we have here,” he said.
“I feel very inspired, I feel challenged, I feel supported and I want to do much more than what we’ve already done together.”
Arsenal co-chairman Josh Kroenke said he was delighted with the new deal.
“Mikel is a dynamic and passionate manager, who is relentless in the pursuit of excellence,” he said.
“He has a deep understanding of Arsenal’s values, and since joining us as head coach, he has taken the team to another level in an Arsenal way.”
Arteta, who had been working as an assistant coach under Pep Guardiola at Manchester City, replaced compatriot Unai Emery as Arsenal boss in December 2019.
He won the FA Cup in his first season in charge – his first silverware as a manager.
Arsenal have finished as runners-up to City in the Premier League for the past two seasons.
Last term, they went agonisingly close to lifting the trophy for the first time since 2004 before being pipped by City on the last day of the season.
Arteta’s men, who face north London rivals Tottenham on Sept 15, are currently fourth in the table after two wins and a draw.
They begin their Champions League campaign next week against Atalanta.
‘Wonderful values’
Arteta, who played 150 times for Arsenal and captained the side, called for calm in August regarding his contract situation, insisting his focus had been on the transfer window.
“We are on it and we will take care of that in the right moment,” said Arteta, who had previously been linked with Paris Saint-Germain and Barcelona.
“I don’t think anybody has to panic. I am in the place where I want to be and am really happy.
“Hopefully, the club thinks the same thing and the players I work with, who in my opinion are the most important ones.”
Arsenal strengthened in the summer transfer window, bringing in a clutch of players including Raheem Sterling, Mikel Merino and Riccardo Calafiori.
There are still questions over whether they have enough firepower to overhaul champions City after their failure to sign a striker to compete with inconsistent Germany forward Kai Havertz.
But Arsenal sporting director Edu has no doubts about Arteta’s ability to keep the club on course for sustained success.
“It’s a very positive and proud moment for everyone at the club and an important part of what we’re all working towards,” Edu said.
“Mikel has shown his qualities since the very first day he joined us, not only as a football manager, but as a person with wonderful values.
“We have a strong belief in what we are doing and what we want to achieve together. Mikel’s new contract gives us stability and clear direction as we aim for new heights.”
–AFP
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