THE SECRETS OF HULL’S SILVA LINING
When Marco calls you don’t say No
IN the living room of his rented house just outside Beverley, Hull City defender Omar Elabdellaoui explains in simple terms why in January he chose to leave Greek champions Olympiacos for a team seemingly destined for relegation from the English Premier League.
‘I wanted to play in England again,’ said Elabdellaoui, who was on Manchester City’s books.
‘But of course I wanted to play for Marco Silva. When Marco Silva calls then you don’t say no.’
Today Hull manager Silva takes his team to the Etihad and attempts to embellish one of the stories of the season.
On the day of his surprise appointment on January 5, Hull were bottom of the table. On Wednesday Silva’s team beat Middlesbrough 4-2 to move clear of the relegation places for the first time since the autumn.
‘I knew he could do this,’ said Elabdellaoui, who played for Silva in Greece last season.
‘He gives players belief. We are not safe but he has given us a chance and that is more than the club had before. I love it here. It has turned into an exciting period of my career.’
Silva, a 39-year-old Portuguese, is no stranger to over-achievement. A modest player, his first managerial post saw him take unheralded Estoril out of the Portuguese second division and into the Europa League.
At Sporting Lisbon, he won the club’s first trophy for seven years and then, in one season at Olympiacos, won a league title and recorded a famous victory at Arsenal in the Champions League.
Maybe Hull was the perfect job? ‘I don’t know,’ Silva smiled at Hull’s training ground yesterday.
‘Many people have asked me why I came here. But, yes, maybe I liked the challenge because nobody believed it could happen.’ Written off by some when he arrived in England, Silva’s subsequent success is built on a home record in all competitions that reads: P8 W7 D1 L0. Indeed, if you examine his record in Greece and Portugal, you will see no home league defeats for 40 matches.
It is a remarkable record and one that points to an ability to align himself with his players and his players with their supporters. That latter connection is something Hull had been missing for some time. A source in Portugal told Sports
mail yesterday: ‘ At Estoril he once told the players before a big game, “You have two arms, two legs and one head. So you are just the same as the opponents. If you think they are superior, you have lost already”.’ Similari- ties in background exist between Silva and compatriot Jose Mourinho. But the mini-Mourinho tag is lazy.
Contrary to some suggestions, Silva is not a client of super-agent Jorge Mendes. Indeed, he is represented by a rival agent, Carlos Goncalves, who looks after another former Chelsea manager, Andre Villas-Boas.
Silva does have the same protective instinct towards his players as Mourinho but is more likely to keep any criticism in-house. For example, he took former Manchester United winger Nani to task in front of his team-mates after one game at Sporting, accusing him of selfishness. Nothing, though, was said publicly.
At Sporting, meanwhile, he and his players were criticised heavily by the club president after an early- season home defeat. The galvanising response was a run of one defeat in 28 domestic games and a Portuguese Cup triumph.
‘He will always back you and that makes you feel really positive as a player,’ explained Elabdellaoui, vice-captain of Norway.
‘You can go to him and talk about football or personal things. He always tells us that.
‘You don’t want to make him angry. But if you do, it will be private and not in the papers.’
Despite their improvement, there remains a feeling of transience at Hull. Silva’s contract runs until June and he didn’t stay longer than a season at either of his two previous postings. His wife and two daughters remain in Portugal. Meanwhile, full back Elabdellaoui — absent from today’s return to his former club with a back strain — is one of several loan and short-contract players recruited by Silva in January to try to give the club a chance.
‘I knew we didn’t have any power in the transfer market,’ Silva explained. ‘But I also knew what was possible if I changed a few key positions.’
Yesterday Silva was pushed on the subject of his own future. In Portugal, those who know him speak of an ambitious young coach who came to Hull to make a name for himself in the most high-profile league in Europe.
‘I had watched it on TV and it’s just like I thought,’ said Silva yesterday. ‘It’s the best in the world.’ Silva is unlikely to stay if Hull do go down and there is a chance he may not even if they stay up.
Yesterday he said: ‘The deal with the chairman is that I try to keep the club in the Premier League. After the season, we will talk.
‘I don’t care about what people said about me. I only care about what’s directly important to my work. But I respect people and would like them to respect me too.
‘At the start I said to the players that I didn’t care that they were loan players or on short deals. While they are here they are Hull. We are all Hull. ‘I am really enjoying this.’ Silva’s past is not without controversy. His bust-up with the Sporting president led to the sack and just last month Silva successfully concluded a defamation case against a director of the Lisbon club for something he once said about him on TV.
Silva, meanwhile, walked from Olympiacos after just a year and was actually unemployed when Hull came calling.
Elabdellaoui added: ‘I left Man City without playing in the Premier League but now I have my dream. ‘I owe Marco a lot for that.’ In Hull they all say the same. For now at least.