André Silva has made up his mind: the Portuguese international wants to leave RB Leipzig in the summer. If the professional has his way, then Silva’s reunion with Frankfurt’s Eintracht in the cup final in Berlin this Saturday (8 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the DFB Cup, on ZDF and on Sky) will be at the same time as his farewell game from the Saxons.
It is unlikely that the attacker will hit his old Hessian club hard with a final goal. The 27-year-old only plays a supporting role in the star ensemble that Leipzig have put together for the offensive. In the last four Bundesliga games, Silva only made one appearance – but that was over 69 minutes in a 3-1 win over Bayern in the Munich Arena.
The balance of the last month sums up Silva’s career in Leipzig quite well. He had some great successes, scored some important goals, so it would be unfair to call him a failure. He was signed by Eintracht in the summer of 2021 as the top scorer, who was finally supposed to bring the crucial shot into the RB storm vortex with additional efficiency. He did not fulfill this promise.
Change of coach as fatality
The services of the Portuguese, who scored 28 goals for Frankfurt in his last Bundesliga season, were worth 23 million euros to Leipzig. Silva was the dream player of the newly hired coach Jesse Marsch, the Americans described him as a king transfer. “I often spoke to Jesse on the phone and he told me how he wanted to play,” said Silva in an interview with the Bild newspaper shortly after his move. The American coach was so convincing that he preferred Leipzig’s offer to Atletico Madrid’s offer.
But as is so often the case in football, the conditions for good cooperation change quickly. Marsch was given a leave of absence after just six months because the results left a lot to be desired, and that ended his experiment to give Leipzig ball-conquest and turbo-tempo football more ball-possession elements. To the great disadvantage of Silva. Because sprints, pressing and counter-pressing are not his great strengths. And Marsch’s successors Tedesco and Rose again followed the pure RB doctrine implemented by Ralf Rangnick.
It’s similar to Lucas Alario in Frankfurt: if a coach doesn’t let his centre-forward play his style of play, then it becomes difficult for him to live up to expectations. But Silva’s qualities are too great to fall completely behind in Leipzig – like Alario in Frankfurt. His competition at RB is much greater than that of the Argentine at Eintracht: Werner, Nkunku, Olmo, Poulsen, Forsberg and Szobszlai.
Leipzig wants 15 to 20 million euros
With these contenders for a place on the starting line-up, 95 competitive appearances with 26 goals and 17 assists in two years is not a bad record. The tendency in the second season with four goals and four assists in the Bundesliga was sharply declining. However, Silva was also unlucky – with five hits against the post and crossbar, he is at the top of the statistics together with Schalke’s Marius Bülter.
The basic expert judgment about the Portuguese is unchanged: Silva knows where the goal is, has excellent ball handling, a very good header game, good shooting technique and game overview and can therefore also put the ball on the people next to him. That’s why his market value didn’t drop that much during his time in Leipzig. RB Leipzig would like to have between 15 and 20 million euros for the top scorer.
Negotiations with Benfica Lisbon are ongoing. But André Silva could also be interesting for Eintracht if Randal Kolo Muani actually leaves the club for a fee of more than 90 million euros. When asked by Kicker, sports director Krösche said: “We have good strikers.” A clear rejection sounds different. And without Kolo Muani, Krösche’s statement would no longer be entirely correct, especially since the substitute strikers Borré and Alario want to leave Eintracht.
