Gilberto Aparecido da Silva (born October 7, 1976 in Lagoa da Prata, Minas Gerais), commonly known as Gilberto Silva, is a Brazilian footballer. He has played most of his club football for the English club Arsenal, as a defensive midfielder.

Gilberto was raised in a poor family and as a child he balanced playing football with various labour jobs. He began his football career in 1997 with América Mineiro, where good form earned him a move to Atlético Mineiro in 2000. He became a star player for Atlético, playing for three years in the Brazilian Campeonato Brasileiro Série A. He came to particular prominence when he helped the Brazilian national team win the 2002 FIFA World Cup, playing in all seven of Brazil's matches.

In August 2002, for a fee of £4.5 million, he joined Arsenal with whom he won the 2004 FA Premier League, and two FA Cup trophies. In his first five seasons with the club he played 208 games and scored 23 goals. On 19 August 2006 he scored Arsenal's first competitive goal at the newly built Emirates Stadium. He was made vice-captain of Arsenal in 2006 and is contracted to the club until June 2009. In 2007 he was selected as Brazil captain for the Copa América tournament, which Brazil went on to win.

More selected articles

Read more

• ...that footballer Francis Lee (pictured) earned his nickname Lee One Pen by setting an English record for the most penalties scored in a single season?

• ...that Les Taylor only captained Watford in the 1984 FA Cup Final because regular captain Wilf Rostron was suspended?

• ...that the England football squad for the 1986 World Cup in Mexico contained two players called Gary Stevens?

• ...that footballer Billy Mosforth was a leading exponent of the screw shot, which allows players to bend the ball's trajectory?

• ...that the 1976 Football League Cup win made Tony Book the first to so as both a player and manager?

More did you know facts

More at WikiProject Football

The Football Association Challenge Cup, commonly known as the FA Cup, is a knockout cup competition in English football, run by and named after The Football Association. The name "FA Cup" refers to the English men's tournament. The equivalent competition for women's teams is the FA Women's Cup.

The FA Cup is the oldest football competition in the world, commencing in the 1871-72 season. Because it involves clubs of all standards playing against each other there is the possibility for "minnows" from the lower divisions to become "giant-killers" by eliminating top clubs from the tournament, although lower division teams rarely reach the final. A record 762 teams were accepted into the FA Cup in 2011-12, which is to date, the most amount of entrants. In comparison, the League Cup can involve only the 72 members of The Football League (which organises the competition) and the 20 teams in the Premiership for a total of 92 eligible teams. The team who have won the most FA Cups throughout the competition's history is Arsenal, having won it on 14 occasions and The Gunners also appeared in the final the most, reaching the showpiece event 21 times. Manchester United are second on the list on Cup wins on 12 and, like Arsenal, appeared in 21 finals, but they hold the most defeats there with 9. Everton and Chelsea have both lost one less, but the latter became the first team to lose three successive final appearances (2020, 2021, and 2022).

More selected competitions

Read more