Fabio Silva at Borussia Dortmund: First home Bundesliga start shows why BVB fans see him as a rival to Serhou Guirassy

Fabio Silva has had to wait for his moment since signing for Borussia Dortmund in the summer. His first Bundesliga start at home finally came against Werder Bremen in January. He did enough to have the fans wondering why it did not come sooner.

On the face of it, what unfolded in the 3-0 win justified Niko Kovac's preference for Serhou Guirassy. Silva did not score. Guirassy, introduced midway through the second half, did. But it was the overall game of the Portuguese that had supporters purring.

He could have had a hat-trick of assists, creating more chances for his teammates than anyone else on the pitch and completing more dribbles too. He ran channels, dropped short to link the play. Everything that Guirassy has been accused of failing to do.

Silva has now created 10 chances in his 232 minutes of Bundesliga action, one shy of Guirassy's total of 11 in 1282 minutes. The Guinean is a goalscorer but Silva is the man currently creating a chance more regularly than any one other player in the competition.

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Until now, fleeting glimpses are all that the Yellow Wall have had of Silva. Carrying an injury on arrival, it was almost December when he entered a Bundesliga game earlier than the 79th minute. There was a start at Freiburg but he was hooked before the hour.

As such, when a surprising number of Silva shirts pepper the throngs in yellow making their pilgrimage to Signal Iduna Park, it is tempting to conclude that they have become enamoured not so much with the player that they have seen so far but the idea of him.

Guirassy boasts a formidable Bundesliga track record but he is a known quantity. The forward from Wolves, despite already playing in the seventh different European league of his fledgling career, comes with the hope of something different, something more.

It reflects Guirassy's form too. Prior to Tuesday, he had scored only once in 12 Bundesliga games, 11 of them starts. It was a dip that had not gone unnoticed by supporters eager to see more evidence of the rotation that Silva too had surely expected.

It was Silva's efforts off the bench midway through the second half against Eintracht Frankfurt that earned him this belated chance. Guirassy had looked off the pace again. His replacement did not find the net but added energy, playing with real purpose.

"I try to reward performance," said Kovac on the eve of the Bremen game. "He had a very good impact and a good performance. I expect that. He gets his chance, sometimes a little earlier and sometimes a little later. But if you get it, then you have to be there."

Silva was there from the outset, setting up the first chance inside a minute and having the first of his own inside three. His smart hold-up play, cleverly trading passes with Carney Chukwuemeka, brought the corner from which Dortmund opened the scoring.

False start in the Premier League

It is six years ago now that Wolves committed £30m to sign Silva after just a handful of games for Porto. Chairman Jeff Shi talked optimistically of the club having acquired a potentially generational talent. Others saw only the influence of agent Jorge Mendes.

Either way, a serious head injury to Raul Jimenez raised the expectation levels more than any chatter from the chairman. Silva, a mere pup, was asked to lead the line in the most demanding league of them all. It was a responsibility that weighed heavily.

Silva managed four Premier League goals in that debut season, scoring home and away against Wolves' Black Country rivals West Bromwich Albion. But despite still being on the books four long years later they remain his only goals in the competition to date.

Travels around Europe

It has been a nomadic existence for Silva ever since. There were some encouraging signs at Anderlecht and PSV, a sojourn in the Low Countries a little more befitting of where his game was at in those teenage years than the intensity of the Premier League.

A brief period at Rangers was more difficult, terrible tumbles and memorable misses marring his stay in Glasgow. But Silva found form on the Canary Islands, his season with Las Palmas bringing goals against Barcelona and Real Madrid. A reputation rebuilding.

That success framed Silva's struggles differently. It was a matter of timing, his career back on a more natural trajectory. Dortmund, out to rediscover their habit of identifying players of vast potential, recognised that the time was right for Silva's second coming.

Even now, he is only 23. For context, Jimenez, the shoes he had been expected to fill at Wolves, was still in Mexico at that age. Guirassy had not even made the move from Amiens to Rennes let alone begun to light up the Bundesliga as a sensation at Stuttgart.

Blossoming at Borussia Dortmund?

With the benefit of hindsight, Silva was never likely to prove a prodigy. The most precocious of talents tend to be blessed with rare gifts of speed or strength that allow them to flourish up against opponents twice their age. His own assets are more subtle.

His movement is what helped him score so many against players of his own age and he has honed that, coupled with composure in front of goal - when he has time. It is only now that he has made the strides physically that he can truly showcase those qualities.

Guirassy, the second highest scorer in the Bundesliga last season, remains a logical choice. But Silva's development is apparent, the potential that put him in the spotlight at such a young age now clearer. Against Bremen, he departed to a standing ovation.

"A new country, a new culture, different weather, or food are no longer a problem for me," Silva said recently. He will returns to England when Dortmund face Tottenham in the Champions League on Tuesday looking like a player finally ready to take his chance.

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