
Silva joined the Lisbon side’s youth academy at the age of eight but made only three appearances for the senior team before he left to join Monaco and subsequently moved to England.
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It was Jesus who gave Silva his first chance in the Benfica team and the 66-year-old says he has avoided talking about the Portugal international since his departure, but could not stay silent in the wake of the player’s recent criticism.
“There are many defects that a man can have, but the worst thing is to be ungrateful. You can have a different idea, but you can’t be ungrateful. “I was the one who added Bernardo Silva to the team. We went on tour for several games and when we arrived in Portugal, he asked me: ‘Mister, what are your ideas about me? I want to know if I will play’.

“‘Then talk to the president, it’s not me,’ I replied. If he’s listening to me, let him say that this is the truth, it wasn’t because I put him on the left side. “After all these years I’m telling you because he was ungrateful to the president of Benfica. I didn’t know how to make up for what Benfica and what the president did for him.”