Thiago Silva hits out at 'joke' Julian Alvarez

Stuart Telford

• 1 Mar 2023 20:50 GMT
• 5 min read

Manchester City striker Julian Alvarez was voted the seventh-best player in the world at the FIFA BEST awards on Monday, something Chelsea centre-back Thiago Silva dismissed as a "joke".

Lionel Messi took the award, as was widely expected after he fired Argentina to World Cup glory in December with seven goals and three assists in Qatar. Karim Benzema and Kylian Mbappe were second and third respectively.

But Alvarez, who has struggled to get his game for Man City and indeed Argentina, finished seventh in the voting, above Kevin De Bruyne and Robert Lewandowski, and Thiago Silva hit out on social media.

READ: Julian Alvarez to Barcelona: Excitement growing over transfer rumours

Instagram account ofuiclear posted a picture of Alvarez with Portuguese text which read: "Best in the world, he's an absolute bench player for City, not a sure starter for his national team and he was at River Plate for most of the relevant time, 2/3 in this case!"

Silva: "joke right there"

Silva, who has 21.4 million followers on the platform, posted "Piada isso aí" in reponse, which means "Joke right there" in Portuguese

Alvarez joined Man City from River Plate in a €21.4m transfer in January 2022 but remained on loan until July.

READ: Stop blaming Haaland for Man City’s problems!

Since arriving at the Etihad he has found a certain Erling Haaland ahead of him in the pecking order, but he has still managed to rack up 10 goals and three assists from his 31 games, only 14 of which have been starts.

He was also Argentina's second-top scorer behind Messi in Qatar with four goals. Whether that makes him a better player than De Bruyne, Lewandowski or many others remains a point of contention.

Silva and Alvarez will next have the opportunity to lock horn on the pitch when Chelsea travel to Man City in the Premier League on the penultimate gameweek of the season - assuming Alvarez gets on the pitch.