Florent Da Silva at Villefranche 2021/22: The teenager described as one of Lyon’s ‘biggest talents’ – scout report

Florent Da Silva (178cm/5’10”, 66kg/145.5lbs) turned 19 years old at the beginning of this month. The young midfielder is an academy product of Ligue 1 giants Lyon and already in his young career, he’s attracted plenty of eyeballs, having been described as “one of the club’s biggest talents”.

Da Silva has thus far made just one first-team appearance for Les Gones — a two-minute cameo in a 3-0 win over Strasbourg last season — so would appear to remain some way off starring for the club against the likes of PSG, Marseille and Lille despite earning such plaudits for his talent and rise through Les Gones’ academy. However, in the past, names such as EPL greats Manchester United were said to have been monitoring the teenager’s development, which isn’t a bad sign for the youngster.

With first-team opportunities non-existent for Da Silva in Ligue 1 this term, the teenager made a January loan move to Championnat National 1 side Villefranche until the end of the 2021/22 campaign with the aim of getting some senior football under his belt. Since making that January move that took Da Silva out of his comfort zone and gave him a new challenge, the 19-year-old has been heavily involved for the National 1 promotion contenders, featuring in eight of a possible nine league games, at the time of writing, while delivering some eye-catching performances that may please the decision-makers at his parent club.

This tactical analysis and scout report aims to provide some insight into Da Silva’s game, with a particular focus on his performances on loan at Villefranche this term. This analysis will highlight what I’ve identified as some key strengths and areas of improvement within the teenager’s game and how these traits and skills may best fit specific roles within a team’s overall tactics now and in the future.

Passing

To kick off this tactical analysis, I’m going to focus on Da Silva’s passing ability. The Lyon man has played all around midfield in his young career — in deeper positions and more advanced positions. So far at Villefranche, Da Silva has been primarily used as a left central midfielder, while he’s also been utilised as a right central midfielder at times within his team’s 3-5-2 system. While Da Silva is comfortable operating in a deeper role, I feel that his future ideally lies in a more advanced role, possibly as a ‘number 10’ but definitely in some advanced creative midfielder role.

Da Silva has been a useful tool in ball progression for Villefranche, particularly when deployed deeper, as can be seen via the passage of play highlighted in figures 1 and 2. Just before figure 1, we saw the midfielder drop away from his base right central midfielder position to essentially form a temporary double-pivot with the holding midfielder alongside him, which created a 2v1 advantage for Villefranche versus this opposition player, highlighting the intelligence of such movement. The movement from Da Silva was also beneficial for his side because it allowed him to lose his marker, who we see in the opposition’s left central midfield position, having opted not to follow Da Silva as he dropped deep, instead deciding to continue protecting his particular zone of the pitch.

This created a lot of space for Da Silva to receive, turn and decide on his next move without intense pressure from an opposition player forcing him into a rushed decision.