| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Darío Debray Silva Pereira[1] | ||
| Date of birth | (1972-11-02)2 November 1972 (age 53)[1] | ||
| Place of birth | Treinta y Tres, Uruguay[1] | ||
| Height | 1.75 m (5 ft 9 in)[1] | ||
| Position | Striker | ||
| Senior career* | |||
| Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) |
| 1992 | Defensor | 18 | (4) |
| 1993–1994 | Peñarol | 44 | (27) |
| 1995–1998 | Cagliari | 89 | (20) |
| 1995 | →Peñarol (loan) | 12 | (8) |
| 1998–1999 | Espanyol | 15 | (3) |
| 1999–2003 | Málaga | 100 | (36) |
| 2003–2005 | Sevilla | 48 | (9) |
| 2005–2006 | Portsmouth | 13 | (2) |
| Total | 339 | (109) | |
| International career | |||
| 1994–2005 | Uruguay | 49 | (14) |
| * Club domestic league appearances and goals | |||
Darío Debray Silva Pereira (born 2 November 1972) is a Uruguayan retired professionalfootballer who played as astriker.
After making a name for himself in his country and in Italy withCagliari, he spent the following seven years of his career in Spain – scoring 48La Liga goals in 163 games, mostly forMálaga – before moving to England. He suffered a serious car accident shortly after leavingPortsmouth, which caused him to lose a leg and effectively end his career.[2]
Amongst other tournaments, Silva representedUruguay at the2002 World Cup, winning nearly 50caps.
Born inTreinta y Tres in thenamesake department, Silva began his career in 1991 withDefensor Sporting (having been aBoca Juniors player for six hours previous to that),[3] signing shortly after withMontevideo andPrimera División powerhousePeñarol;
In 1995, aged 22, he switched to Italy and signed withCagliari Calcio, where he was nicknamedSa pibinca (Sardinian fornuisance) due to his frenzied attacking style.[4] Inhis last season he helped the club return toSerie A, posting his best individual record with 13 goals; during his three-year spell, he also briefly returned to Peñarol on loan.
Silva then moved to Spain, where he would remain for nearly one full decade. He started atRCD Espanyol where he failed to impress, and signed forMálaga CF in 1999. With theAndalusians he formed an efficient attacking partnership withJulio Dely Valdés, also helping to the conquest of the2002 UEFA Intertoto Cup and consecutive mid-tableLa Liga finishes;[5] during his tenure with the club, the temperamental player was alsosent off six times.[6]
In 2003, aged nearly 31, Silva joined Málaga neighboursSevilla FC. Two years later, as the club purchasedLuís Fabiano,Frédéric Kanouté andJavier Saviola, he was deemed surplus to requirements by managerJoaquín Caparrós and cancelled the last year of his contract,[5] joiningPremier League sidePortsmouth on afree transfer.[7]
At Pompey, Silva failed to make an impact after suffering an ankle injury and, after scoring just three goals in 15 appearances, he was released from his contract on 13 February 2006.[8][9] He found the net againstCharlton Athletic,[10]Sunderland[11] andIpswich Town, the latter inthe third round of theFA Cup.[12]
Silva made his debut forUruguay on 19 October 1994, in afriendly match againstPeru in theEstadio Nacional José Díaz in Lima (1–0 win).[13] He appeared for the national team at the1997 FIFA Confederations Cup, the2002 FIFA World Cup – no goals in three matches in an eventual group stage exit[14][15][16]– and the2004 Copa América.[17] Silva was crucial in helping Uruguay qualify for the 2002 World Cup, scoring the first of their three goals against Australia during the second leg of the2001 OFC–CONMEBOL play-off in Montevideo. Silva also played in the2005 OFC–CONMEBOL play-off, where Uruguay ended up losing on penalties to Australia during the second leg in Sydney.
Silva retired from international play after Uruguay failed to qualify to the 2006 World Cup,[18] having played 49 times and scored 14 goals.[19][17]
Silva has two children, a daughter named Elina (born c. 1997) and a son named Diego Darío (born c. 2003).[20]
On 23 September 2006, Silva was seriously injured in acar crash in Montevideo, where he was staying at while waiting for a new club to sign him following his Portsmouth stint. The accident occurred when he lost control of hispick-up truck and was thrown from the vehicle, colliding with alamppost.[21] In the impact, the 33-year-old Silva fractured hisskull, being rendered unconscious and suffering acompound fracture on his right leg. At the time of the crash, he was traveling with two other ex-footballers, Elbio Papa and Dardo Pereira, who were not seriously injured.[21]
On the day of the accident, a team of five made the decision to amputate Silva's leg below the knee, and he underwent an operation which lasted for three and a half hours. He was put into a medically induced coma for the amputation.[22] After the operation, there were fears that the amputation would become infected.[21] However, his condition was declared stable a few days later as he recovered at Montevideo's La Española hospital, whose staff expected him to make a full recovery.
After difficulty with coming to terms with the amputation, Silva left the hospital on 5 October 2006, and returned to his home in Montevideo with the plan of receiving aprosthetic leg in Italy to help him walk and run without the aid of crutches.[23] Silva has said that he "wanted to die" when he found that his leg had been amputated. In 2006, he told uefa.com "when I woke up after the accident and realised I was in hospital, I looked under the sheets and saw that my right leg was missing. I started to panic a bit, but ten minutes later, when the doctors explained what had happened, I started crying."[24] However, Silva also said that he was grateful to god that the accident happened at the end of his playing career, rather than at the beginning of it, claiming that he was crying "tears of gratitude" at the hospital.[25]
In October 2006, news reports suggested that Silva was offered a job as a footballpundit in his country. He had also expressed a desire to become amanager shortly before retiring, but later changed his mind.[26] He took the pitch again on 13 January 2009 after a three-year absence, taking part in a charity match between Uruguay XI and Argentina XI for the “Fundación Niños con Alas” (Winged Children Foundation), again displaying his scoring touch after converting apenalty kick.[27]
Afterwards, Silva was involved in breeding ofracing horses, also recommending the animal for therapeutic purposes.[28][29] In May 2019, rumours circulated that he was broke and working as a waiter in a pizzeria inMálaga;[30] shortly after, he denied this and stated he was only a friend of the person who ran the business.[31]
| National team | Year | Apps | Goals |
|---|---|---|---|
| Uruguay | 1994 | 1 | 1 |
| 1995 | 9 | 1 | |
| 1997 | 8 | 4 | |
| 2000 | 7 | 3 | |
| 2001 | 10 | 3 | |
| 2002 | 4 | 0 | |
| 2004 | 8 | 2 | |
| 2005 | 2 | 0 | |
| Total | 49 | 14 | |
| No. | Date | Venue | Opponent | Score | Result | Competition | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 19 October 1994 | National Stadium,Lima, Peru |  Peru | 1–0 | 1–0 | Friendly | [33] |
| 2 | 25 June 1995 | Estadio Parque Artigas,Paysandú, Uruguay |  New Zealand | 5–0 | 7–0 | Friendly | [34] |
| 3 | 30 April 1997 | Estadio Defensores del Chaco,Asunción, Paraguay |  Paraguay | 1–3 | 1–3 | 1998 FIFA World Cup qualification | [35] |
| 4 | 8 June 1997 | Estadio Centenario,Montevideo, Uruguay |  Colombia | 1–0 | 1–1 | 1998 FIFA World Cup qualification | [36] |
| 5 | 17 December 1997 | King Fahd International Stadium,Riyadh, Saudi Arabia |  South Africa | 1–1 | 4–3 | 1997 FIFA Confederations Cup | [37] |
| 6 | 3–1 | ||||||
| 7 | 3 June 2000 | Estadio Centenario, Montevideo, Uruguay |  Chile | 1–0 | 2–1 | 2002 FIFA World Cup qualification | [38] |
| 8 | 28 June 2000 | Maracanã Stadium,Rio de Janeiro, Brazil |  Brazil | 1–0 | 1–1 | 2002 FIFA World Cup qualification | [39] |
| 9 | 3 September 2000 | Estadio Centenario, Montevideo, Uruguay |  Ecuador | 2–0 | 4–0 | 2002 FIFA World Cup qualification | [40] |
| 10 | 4 September 2001 | National Stadium, Lima, Peru | Peru | 1–0 | 2–0 | 2002 FIFA World Cup qualification | [41] |
| 11 | 14 November 2001 | Estadio Centenario, Montevideo, Uruguay |  Argentina | 1–0 | 1–1 | 2002 FIFA World Cup qualification | [42] |
| 12 | 25 November 2001 | Estadio Centenario, Montevideo, Uruguay |  Australia | 1–0 | 3–0 | 2002 FIFA World Cup qualification | [43] |
| 13 | 18 July 2004 | Estadio Jorge Basadre,Tacna, Peru | Paraguay | 2–1 | 3–1 | 2004 Copa América | [44] |
| 14 | 3–1 |
Peñarol
Málaga
Uruguay squads | |||||||||||||||||||
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