Chelsea’s Thiago Silva keeps calm and carries on with one eye on World Cup

Thiago Silva is acutely aware of what is to come. The World Cup is the ultimate obsession for every Brazil player but for a senior figure like him, somebody with so much history, the man who is expected to wear the captain’s armband in Qatar, the intensity is ratcheted up even further.

It is no exaggeration to say that Silva has felt the countdown to the finals, which will get under way on 20 November, since his nation was knocked out of the 2018 tournament by Belgium in that epic quarter-final. It has certainly been the case since he joined Chelsea in the summer of 2020, the sense at the club pretty clear that everything has been building to this point for him.

The Chelsea manager, Graham Potter, is not kidding himself. “Everyone has got half an eye on the World Cup,” he said. “We’d be fooling ourselves if we didn’t think that was the case, no matter what country. But it’ll be his fourth one for Brazil so there’s a half an eye, definitely.”

And yet one of the things that elevates Silva is his ability to compartmentalise, to retain that aura of control. It was stamped across his performance in Wednesday’s 3-0 Champions League win at Stamford Bridge over his former club Milan – a display that had the home crowd purring, jumping out of their seats and singing his name.

Potter has a decision to make on Silva for Saturday’s home game with Wolves, even though he will be without another of his central defenders, Wesley Fofana. Silva played the 90 minutes of last Saturday’s 2-1 win at Crystal Palace and he came through the full match on Wednesday, too. At 38, he surely needs a breather here and there. Potter has ruled out Fofana for a “few weeks” after the Frenchman damaged a knee against Milan.

But if Silva plays, there would