Mikael Silvestre
Encyclopedia : M : MI : MIK : Mikael Silvestre
Mikael Silvestre (born August 9,1977 in Chambray-Les-Tours) is a French footballer, playing as a defender. He currently plays for Manchester United, as well as France internationally.
He began his career with the French club Rennes in the 1995/96 season. His time at the club helped build his reputation, and in the 1997/98 season was signed by Inter Milan. He made 18 league appearances for Inter, as well as 6 European Cup games. Silvestre signed for Manchester United on September 10, 1999 for £3,500,000.
Silvestre is adept as both a centre-back and a left full-back, though he has stated that he prefers playing in the centre. Silvestre's most positive attribute is his pace, and he often sets up scoring opportunities. He is also noted for his crossing and tackling abilities. He is married Séverine and has a little girl named CLÉO (bornOctober 27, 2003).
Career at Manchester United
His first season at Manchester Utd was not exceptional; replacing an injured Ronny Johnsen in the centre with Jaap Stam. By the 2001/2002 season Mikael had established himself in the United defence ahead of the veteran Denis Irwin, and was proving to be adept both in defence and getting forward. He set up numerous goals for Ruud van Nistelrooy, notably away to Deportivo in a 2-0 towards the end of the season. There was criticism put his way after the Bayern Munich game where he was largely blamed for the late equaliser in the 1-1 draw, but this typified United's season as a whole, and he was one of their better performances.
During the next season, his most recent championship winning year he carried on initially where he left off, but following injury to Rio Ferdinand and the poor performance of an ageing Laurent Blanc, he was switched to his favoured position of central defence. Here he forged a successful partnership mid-season with Wes Brown at the heart of the defence until Rio's return, looking calm and assured, using his pace to good effect, whilst continuing to provide goals with his accurate diagonal balls.
He continued in this role the following season where he and Rio Ferdinand excelled as a pair and after half a season where being touted as the best central defensive pairing the club had seen since Bruce and Pallister. However, this was cut short following Rio Ferdinand's eight month ban for refusing to have a drugs test. In the latter half of this season when being paired with an unfit Wes Brown, United's defence proved to be rather less secure and both Brown and Silvestre were at fault for numerous goals and despite winning the FA Cup with a 3-0 victory over Millwall, this uncertainty at the heart of the defence was to continue into the start of the 2004/2005 season.
Now, following the partnership of Brown and Ferdinand flourishing at the heart of the defence, and the recent signings of Nemanja Vidic and Patrice Evra, Silvestre's place in the squad would appear to be less than secure. However at the end of last season he showed some fine form, particularly in the 2-0 victory over Arsenal and back at the left of United's defence, showed why fans had rated him so highly. He admits that he was given the option to leave during the January transfer window during 2006, with an opportunity to join former Liverpool manager Gerard Houllier at Lyon. However to his credit remained at the club and has since proven himself to be a useful member of the team. Until Patrice Evra can show that he can adapt and play successfully in England, it is clear that Mikael remains the best left back at the club apart from the immensely popular Argentinian Gabriel Heinze, but comfortably ahead of John O'Shea and Kieron Richardson. For this reason it is likely that he will remain at the club for the forseeable future.
International Career
He received criticism for his performance in Euro 2004, where he gave away penalties to both England and Croatia, before France were knocked out by Greece in the quarter-finals. Previously he was a member of French junior team at the 1997 FIFA World Youth Championship. He also played one game in the French squad that made the 2006 World Cup final.
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.