Nélson de Jesus Silva (DIDA)

Nélson de Jesus Silva (born October 7, 1973 in Irará, Bahia), best known as Dida, is a Brazilian goalkeeper. He currently plays for Italian Serie A club A.C. Milan, with whom he is a two-time winner of the UEFA Champions League.
Dida's club career began in 1990, at the age of 16, with Alagoas team Cruzeiro de Arapiraca (not to be confused with Cruzeiro EC). Two seasons later, he returned to his home state after being signed by Bahia club Vitória, who would win the Bahia state championship in 1992. In 1993, he made 24 first-team appearances for Vitória after winning the Under-21 FIFA World Youth Championship as Brazil's first-choice.

He was acquired by Cruzeiro EC in 1994, where, in a span of five seasons, he won three Minas Gerais state titles, the 1996 Copa do Brasil, and the 1997 Copa Libertadores, along with a pair of Placar Bola de Prata awards as the top goalkeeper in the Campeonato Brasileiro Série A. But with this success soon came a burning desire to ply his trade in Europe, and in January 1999, Dida announced that he would be leaving Cruzeiro to sign with Italian powerhouse A.C. Milan.

A.C. Milan

Dida's request to opt out of the remainder of his contract with Cruzeiro in order to go to Europe drew the Raposa management's anger, and thus kicked off an ugly dispute that lasted for five months, during which he suited up for Switzerland club FC Lugano just to keep in game shape. But when the issue was finally resolved and Dida formally joined Milan, playing time was hard to come by as incumbent Christian Abbiati already had a firm grip on the #1 jersey. Not only that, veteran Sebastiano Rossi was not to be counted out, so Dida was third on coach Alberto Zaccheroni's depth chart.

Milan loaned Dida to São Paulo club Corinthians in order to get him some regular first-team action. It was during this time that his renowned penalty-saving skills came to the fore. His saving of two spot-kicks in Corinthians' 3-2 victory over intrastate rivals São Paulo FC - with both penalties taken by Raí - in the semifinal of the 1999 Campeonato Brasileiro provoked the headline "Dida is God" from sports publication Lance!. In the inaugural FIFA World Club Championship (today the FIFA Club World Cup) in 2000, Dida saved a Nicolas Anelka penalty in a 2-2 draw with Real Madrid, and in the final against Vasco da Gama, Corinthians won the title in a 4-3 penalty shoot-out after Edmundo's shot went wide.

Milan recalled Dida for the 2000-01 season, and a chance to impress the team brass awaited at the beginning of the new Champions League campaign. He had leapfrogged past Rossi into the starting lineup, since Abbiati was away with Italy competing at the Sydney Olympics. A 4-1 group stage win over Beşiktaş J.K. on September 13, 2000 marked his official debut for the club, but it wasn't long before he would be dealt a cruel hand. On September 19, in the 89th minute against Leeds United at a rain-soaked Elland Road, he accidentally dropped the ball into his own goal after catching a Lee Bowyer shot, causing Milan to lose the match 1-0. It was an error of embarrassing proportions that continues to linger to this day, and despite a strong performance in a 2-0 Milan victory over FC Barcelona one week later, he was promptly benched following Abbiati's return. He made his first and only Serie A start that season as well, a 2-0 November loss to Parma F.C. in which Patrick Mboma scored both goals.

To make matters worse, one month after the Leeds debacle, he was among nearly a dozen Serie A players, among them Inter's Álvaro Recoba and Lazio's Juan Sebastián Verón, who were charged with using fraudulent European passports. Dida confessed to falsifying papers in order to obtain a Portuguese passport, in an attempt to dodge the Italian league's limit on non-EU players so he could sign with Milan. FIGC slapped Milan with a £314,000 fine, and banned Dida from the league for one year, in addition to a FIFA-imposed year-long suspension from national team play. In April 2003, following a court appearance in Milano, he was handed a seven-month suspended prison sentence.

Dida was loaned back to Corinthians the next season following the passport flap, then recalled again to Milan for the '02-03 campaign, which he began on the bench until fate handed him a golden opportunity. On August 14, 2002, Abbiati limped off with a hip injury at halftime of a Champions League qualifying stage match against FC Slovan Liberec. Dida took his place for the second half and turned in a solid performance that would shockingly result in a new first-choice keeper for Milan.

His European career had suddenly taken off and it would soon lead to him writing his name into Milan history after the 2003 Champions League final at Old Trafford against league rivals Juventus, where his three saves against David Trézéguet, Marcelo Zalayeta and Paolo Montero in the penalty shoot-out, which had followed 120 minutes of goalless play, helped the Rossoneri win their sixth CL title and gained him worldwide prominence. The praise poured in from his home country as well, as he was labeled "Saint Dida" by the Brazilian press, and Folha de São Paulo chipped in with the headline "Dida pushes Milan to the top of Europe."

Dida was named the 2003-04 Serie A Goalkeeper of the Year as he conceded only 20 goals in 32 appearances, thus becoming the first and only non-Italian goalkeeper to win the award. Despite being hit and felled twice by foreign objects hurled from the crowd by opposing fans, he kept a clean sheet as Milan clinched their 17th Scudetto in club history with a 1-0 win over AS Roma on May 3, 2004. His consistent, eye-catching performances had transformed him into one of the world's top keepers and soon had pundits drawing comparisons between him and Juventus superstar Gianluigi Buffon, but he wasn't bowled over by such accolades. "I have no problem considering [Buffon] as the best around, because I certainly don't feel at the top," Dida said to Sky Sports in 2004. "I like to think of myself as the worst. Only that way can I find the stimulus to keep on improving."

Honours

* Serie A: 2003-04
* FIFA World Youth Championship: 1993
* Copa do Brasil: 1996 (Cruzeiro), 2002 (Corinthians)
* Campeonato Brasileiro: 1999
* Copa Libertadores: 1997
* FIFA Club World Championship: 2000
* UEFA Champions League: 2002-03, 2006-07
* Coppa Italia: 2003
* European Super Cup: 2003
* FIFA World Cup: 2002
* Copa América: 1999
* FIFA Confederations Cup: 1997, 2005
* Serie A Goalkeeper of the Year : 2004
* Revista Placar Bola de Prata: 1993 (Vitória), 1996, 1998 (Cruzeiro), 1999 (Corinthians)

Dida is a four-time nominee of the IFFHS World's Best Goalkeeper Award. He finished with the fourth-highest number of votes in 2003, was third behind winner Buffon and Chelsea's Petr Čech in 2004, was the runner-up to Čech in 2005, and finished eighth in 2006. He was also voted keeper of the year at the inaugural FIFPro World XI Player Awards in 2005, and has also been nominated for the Ballon d'Or twice, in 2003 and 2005.