Gilberto Silva won the World Cup in 2002, lifted the Premier League without losing a match in 2003-04, and spent six seasons making Arsenal's midfield breathe in a way nobody else in the league has matched since. His own coaches called him "o muro invisível", the invisible wall. In a game that rewarded the players who scored the goals, he was the one who made the space for someone else to.
He is fifty now. He runs a foundation for young players in Minas Gerais. Last month, in a conversation that is in full in the Striver app, we asked him what he would write to the fifteen year old version of himself if he could.
This is what he sent us, translated from Portuguese, with his permission to publish it as it is.
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Dear Gilberto,
You are fifteen years old. You are living in Lagoa da Prata. You have been told by the coaches at Americano de Belo Horizonte that your body is not ready. You have taken the bus home. Your mother has made feijão. Your father has not said anything yet about what he thinks.
You think your career is over. It is not. It has not started.
Here is what I want you to know.
**The year you spend working in the sweet factory is not a wasted year.** You will hate every minute of that year. You will stand on a production line for eight hours a day and come home too tired to train properly. The other players your age will be getting faster while you stand still. You will think you have missed your chance.
You have not. The year teaches you that football is a privilege, not a right, and when the call finally comes from Atlético at eighteen you will not waste a single session. The boys who went straight into academies at fifteen will never love it the way you are about to.
**Your body will catch up.** At fifteen you are not strong enough. At sixteen you are still not strong enough. At eighteen, something changes. Eat. Sleep. Do not listen to the coach who tells you that your game is not physical. Your game is going to be entirely physical, and you are going to be the calmest man in any midfield you ever walk onto.
**The invisible work is the work.** You are never going to be the player who scores the goal that wins the final. You are going to be the one who makes sure the man who does is not tackled from behind in the build-up. This will not make the newspapers. It will win you a World Cup in 2002 in Yokohama and a Premier League in 2004 in a kit you have not imagined yet. Your mother will cry both times. You will cry both times. Nobody outside that dressing room will know exactly what you did.
That is the job. Take it.
**Say yes to Belo Horizonte in 2000.** You will want to stay near your family. Your father will not be well. Go anyway. You will be home every weekend and he will live to see you lift every trophy you are about to lift.
**When you get to London in 2002, learn English in the first year, not the second.** The second year is too late. You will make friends you would otherwise not have made. One of them is Sol.
**You are not the best player in your squad.** You will never be the best player in your squad. You will be the player the best players need. Nobody else in your position in the world will play it better than you do between 2002 and 2006. There is an honour in that.
I love you. Your mother is proud. The coaches at Americano were wrong.
Gilberto
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The full conversation is in the Striver app. Forty two minutes. He talks about the sweet factory, the day his father watched him play for Atlético for the first time, and the exact moment in the 2002 final where the ball went out of play and he realised what was happening. The academy players in Lagoa da Prata have already watched it. We think you should too.