Guinea-Bissau-born striker Flavio Silva has joined Kaizer Chiefs with a history of concerns from his time in Portugal.
Being a former Portuguese colony, many a footballer from Guinea-Bissau move to the European country early, which is what happened with Silva.
His football career path remains largely unknown in Portugal having only ever played in the lower divisions, where he didn’t leave an impression.
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After his time with Sporting’s U19 team, Silva went out to Sport Clube Uniao Torreense for six months.
This was in July 2014 and Torreense were playing in the semi-professional lower division known as the Terceira Divisão back then.
From there, he found his way to another short-term stay at Benfica B, who played in the Second Division but wasn’t a hit.
Next stop was another six months at SC Covilha, which meant back to the Third Division and a bit of progress.
In February 2016, then came the move to USA second-tier league club San Antonio but lasted less than six months, before returning to join Union Madeira straight after their relegation from the Primeira Liga.
The 2016/17 campaign was his first full season in the Portuguese Second Division and after staying on for the next, he then spent another two at CD Mafra after their promotion.
There were no double figures scoring returns per season at both clubs.
This meant another spell playing Third Division football for Alverca.
Five months later, it was a move to Real Sport Clube, before moving to FC Amora in the same third tier in a spell which ended in June 2022.
His time in the Portuguese Second Division was largely a struggle with a goal in every seven appearances, while he was always of a better quality in the Third Division.
After all the change of clubs in Portugal, he went over to tiny Luxemburg, where he could only last four months at FC Mondercange and left without scoring.
The best spell of his career was in Indonesia, where he has played for the past two-and-a-half years at Persik Kediri and Persebaya Surabaya.
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However, the Indonesia Liga 1 is lowly ranked and still semi-professional despite being able to offer the league’s best earners salaries of up to USD8000 (approx. R142 000).
Chiefs is a dream move for Silva, who will enjoy the best package of his career but will be faced with demands of delivering goals.
What he has shown during the pre-season camp in the Netherlands calls for improvement from the 29-year-old if he is to succeed.
Photo: Rene Nijhuis/MB Media/Getty Images
