Gilberto is expected to start against Birmingham, and then he should start in the FA Cup Final.
Gilberto is determined that Arsenal will end the season on a high by beating Manchester United to lift the FA Cup
The man the Brazilians call “The Invisible Wall†confidently expects Manchester United to be climbing a metaphorical one after the FA Cup final at the Millennium stadium on Saturday. Unlike the rest of his Arsenal teammates, Gilberto Silva has not finished on the losing side against United these past two years, and he does not intend to start in a Cardiff showpiece that is definitely not for the faint-hearted. Both teams need to win to avoid the indignity of finishing the season empty-handed, and the history between them suggests the hottest ticket in town should come imprinted with an X certificate.
United’s motivation is the greater, with their followers, from Torquay to Tynemouth, increasingly restless after another third-place finish in a Premiership that once seemed to be their exclusive preserve. Arsenal are up for it, too, having nursed a sense of grievance since United bullied them out of their record-breaking unbeaten run back in October, and Gilberto likens the final to a dust-up back home between Brazil and Argentina.
Enough said.
According to his manager, Arsène Wenger, it is no coincidence that Arsenal started the season well, when the Brazilian was anchoring their midfield, and are finishing it in style, now that he is back after injury. It was in between, when Gilberto was out for six months with a career-threatening back condition, that the defending champions lost twice to United and dropped out of contention for the Premiership and his personal preference, the Champions League.
Wenger said on Friday: “Gilberto gives us tactical stability. He reads the game well and holds back to provide cover in front of the defence. He’s also good in the air, where we’ve had a big weakness for a while. I like him because he’s a genuine guy who likes to help others. You have two types of player. There is the one who, when you lose the ball, looks to others to win it back, and then you have the other, like Gilberto, who doesn’t even think about anybody else and goes after it straight away. Some say he’s like (Claude) Makelele, but I don’t think he needs to be compared with anyone. He is Gilberto Silva, a great player in his own right.â€
The man himself is a rounded character who plays the mandolin and has been known to treat the regulars at his local in St Albans to an impromptu burst. Next Saturday, presumably, he will content himself with pulling, rather than plucking, the strings, although “Abide With Me†would be interesting, a la Captain Corelli.
Gilberto is looking forward to renewing hostilities with Roy Keane and Co, and hopes the enmity that has bubbled up in recent seasons does not boil over again and spoil the occasion. Speaking with the wisdom and authority of a World Cup winner, he called for calm, and legitimate aggression only, in a match that will be televised to a global audience. “I think it will be a good final, and I’m sure people expect it to be,†he said. “Both teams like to play football, and we are going there just to do that, we’re not thinking about what happened to us at Old Trafford earlier in the season. We need to forget that and concentrate on how we want to play our game. If one of their players kicks us, we shouldn’t go looking to kick him back.
“People watching the final all over the world want to see football, not players trying to fight each other, which has happened before. We all need to keep calm this time. If someone tackles me hard, I’ll accept it as part of the game. Both sets of players need to respect one another. It’s a big match and we’ll all have a lot of passion in our hearts, but afterwards we have our families to go home to, and we don’t want to make them ashamed. We don’t need to fight anyone, just fight to win the game. Of course, we can’t expect it to be easy. It will be hard physically, and we have to be prepared for that.â€
At 28, and with 25 caps for Brazil, he is happy just to be playing again, and a war with United is the last thing he needs so early in his rehabilitation after the spinal injury he sustained in the first match of the season. He played on until September 18, but the pain finally became unbearable, and the diagnosis of a stress fracture had him fearing the worst.
“Many people thought I wouldn’t play again because the problem was serious,†he said. “I tried to be positive, but for a long time I forced myself to forget about football, just in case. I couldn’t do anything in England, so I went home to Brazil. I stayed there for three months and had to wear a brace constantly to support and protect my spine. There was a lot of pain when I took it off every night. I would take my children to the park every day and sit and watch them play. Being able to do that was important, it kept my spirits up.
“I have to say I wasn’t prepared for what happened. As a footballer you see a lot of players badly injured, but you never think it will happen to you. When it did, it hit me very hard. In Brazil they show English football on the TV, but in the three months I was there I saw only two of Arsenal’s games. I didn’t want to watch football, I wanted to play it, and it was too painful emotionally to see my team without me. I’d sit there thinking, ‘If only I could help them’.â€
Back at Highbury, the feeling was mutual. Without Gilberto “doing a Makeleleâ€, as the front sweeper’s role has come to be known, the Arsenal defence creaked and cracked, and he was appreciated more in his absence than he ever was when he played. “The supporters were nice, telling me how much I was missed,†he said. “It’s good that they accept me because fans everywhere seem to think all Brazilian footballers are like Ronaldo or Ronaldinho and I’m not that sort of player, I’m much more defensive. In Brazil they call me ‘The Invisible Wall’, and I’m happy with that. Sometimes you will not notice me on the pitch because I’m not on the ball very often, but I try to be in the right position to cover all the time. If Patrick (Vieira) goes forward, I’ll stay in behind him.
“When I came back into the team it wasn’t only the supporters who said ‘We missed you’, the players said it, too. That was because the way I play is different to the replacements who took my place. They prefer to play further forward, I’m happy to sit just in front of the defence, like Makelele does at Chelsea. We are very similar. Also, when we are in difficult situations, I can use my experience to help the team. You can ’t put pressure on the young players who came in, not like you can on me, Patrick Vieira, Thierry Henry and Sol Campbell. Philippe Senderos, Cesc Fabregas and Mathieu Flamini are just starting out, and it would be wrong to put the burden of pressure on them.â€
He was back in Brazil and chose not to watch the “Battle of Old Trafford†in October, when United roughed up Arsenal and ended their unbeaten sequence in the League one match short of the 50 mark. “I didn’t see the game,†he said, “but I spoke a lot with Edu and I know from that, and from sensing the atmosphere, that it took us a long time to recover from having that run stopped.
“Now we meet United again in the Cup final, and they are in much the same situation as us. Neither of us has won the Premiership or done well in the Champions League. They will fight hard and be determined to play at their best, and we have to remember who we are up against because Manchester United, at their best, are a very strong team. But we are prepared for them, and this season has been frustrating for us, too. We lost our title and got knocked out of Europe, so all there is left is the FA Cup.â€
He feels that the battle in midfield will be decisive: “It usually is because the ball is in the middle of the park most of the time, and that’s where you establish control. It won’t be easy, I have great respect for Roy Keane, and for what he has done. I don’t know who is going to play with him, but whoever it is will be a good player, doing his best.â€
He would like it to be his friend and compatriot Kleberson. Cynics would put that down to a selfish desire for supremacy, but while United’s own Brazilian has been much less successful in English football, Gilberto insists it is only a matter of time. “You have not seen the best of Kleberson yet,†he said. “He has had a lot of injuries, which made things difficult for him. He doesn’t speak English, which makes it even harder. I hope he is over his injuries now and can play more games next season. I’ve phoned him a number of times but he has never called me. I don’t know why, maybe he doesn’t like to spend his money! We are good friends, but for the next week we will be enemies.†Mandolin Man doesn’t have many of those.
