Luiz da Silva     19     Striker     PSV     Peru

Skinny

That’s Beto da Silva to you, by the way. He’s a teenage forward from Lima, Peru, and he made the switch to the lucrative shores of Europe at the beginning of this year. Da Silva moved around often during his youth career before settling at Sporting Cristal in his home city.

There, he played for the first team from 2013 and ended his professional Cristal spell with eight goals from 37 appearances in all competitions. At the beginning of 2016 he was signed by Eredivisie outfit PSV, ostensibly for their Jong PSV side.

2016 has been…

A year of patient nurturing after a big move. Therein lies the contradiction of the following report. Da Silva has been through a huge upheaval, positive though its end result should be for him, and expecting him to hit the ground running would’ve been ridiculous. We didn’t expect that, but his choice of destination has elicited sighs of frustration whenever we’ve checked in this year.

PSV is a fantastic place for young players to quickly establish themselves. Call us loopy, but we’d hoped Da Silva would’ve fired his way out of the second team in fairly short order.

He’s certainly the type of player who catches the eye. A forward who can play on the left wing or as a more central forward, Da Silva is a flair player pure and simple. He has a bunch of skills in his locker: terrific ball control and endless flicks and tricks. He dribbles well, with a nifty drop of the shoulder, and he loves a stepover to beat a man.

He has pace, too, although when he has the ball at his feet he’s happy enough to slow things down and succeed with his skill. The best way to describe Da Silva’s style is to say that he’s one of those players who just seems to see the game on another plane. He has that otherworldly extra dimension available to his imagination. He’s creative to the core and has an eye for the spectacular.

As for the negatives, they’re difficult to define given his lack of first team football. Although his physical strength was adequate for getting him out of tricky spots in Lima, he might need some time in the gym to prosper in some of Europe’s tougher leagues. That said, he’s looked unfazed in his minimal time in the first team environment so far.

What’s next?

Da Silva turns 20 before the end of the year and the players in this list are expected to breathe rarefied air. Jong PSV must become PSV before too long, and that promotion will only happen if he can step it up a notch in the second team.

Internationally, it’s been better news. Da Silva debuted for Peru this year, scoring in a friendly against Trinidad & Tobago in May. He now has five senior caps. More of that, please.

D     At a club where they start players young, we (harshly) hoped for more