Most games for Sporting
©IMAGO
Adrien Silva, European champion with Portugal in 2016, has announced the end of his football career. The native Frenchman thanked Instagram in Portuguese – “Obrigado futebol”. Until the summer, the 36-year-old former midfielder had played in the United Arab Emirates, where he was under contract with United Football Club.
Silva played most of the games for his youth club Sporting, with whom he won the cup three times and the Super Cup in Portugal twice. In 240 games he contributed 39 goals and 19 assists. After two loans, once to Maccabi Haifa and once to Académica Coimbra, Silva left Lisbon in 2017 for Leicester City, who paid a transfer fee of 20.5 million euros to Sporting. After the Foxes, he also played in Ligue 1 with AS Monaco and in Serie A with Sampdoria Genoa. From 2022 onwards, Silva slowly ended his career, playing for the first time in the UAE at Al-Wahda FC and again at home at Rio Ave FC. Silva appeared on the field 26 times for Portugal’s national team, most recently at the 2018 World Cup.