Best Alternatives to Rui Silva

Playing Style Analysis

Silva is the rare Liga Portugal goalkeeper who earns his keep with his feet rather than his fists—a quietly modern operator in a league still dominated by traditional stoppers. His 76.5% pass accuracy places him in the top 20% among his positional peers, a genuine marker of technical reliability under pressure. The counterintuitive detail, though, is that his below-average passes-per-90 suggests he isn't asked to play out frequently—meaning that accuracy figure reflects quality over volume, not just a high-touch system inflating the number. The three closest DNA matches to Rui Silva:

• Diogo Costa(90% match) — A Reliable Keeper. Statistically, he stands out as dominant in aerial duels (100% success), commands the box with authority (0.6 punches/90) and keeps goals out effectively (0.46 conceded/90).
• Lukas Hornicek(85% match) — A Sweeper-Keeper. Statistically, he stands out as dominant in aerial duels (94% success) and commands the box with authority (0.6 punches/90).
• José Sá(84% match) — A Traditional Keeper. Statistically, he stands out as dominant in aerial duels (96% success) and commands the box with authority (1.3 punches/90).

Similarity uses per-90 performance across playing-style dimensions. How Player DNA matching works →