Spain great David Silva ends career at 37 because of serious knee injury

Silva had been preparing for another Champions League campaign after helping Real Sociedad finish fourth in Spain’s La Liga last season.

Real Sociedad's David Silva, right, fights for the ball with Barcelona's Sergio Busquets during a Spanish La Liga match. (PHOTO: AP)

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Spain great David Silva announced the end of his career on Thursday at age 37, one week after suffering a serious knee injury.

“Today is a sad day for me,” Silva said in a video posted on his social media accounts. “It is time to say goodbye to what I have dedicated my whole life to.”

He had been preparing for another Champions League campaign after helping Real Sociedad finish fourth in Spain’s La Liga last season. He damaged the ACL in his left knee in training last week.

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Silva is in the elite group of Spain players that was on each title-winning squad from the 2008 European Championship, the 2010 World Cup and Euro 2012.

In that 2012 final he scored the opening goal with a header in a 4-0 rout of Italy in Kyiv. It was arguably the peak performance of Spain’s dominant era playing the high-tempo, possession-based style known as tiki-taka.

Silva also won four English Premier League titles in a decade with Manchester City, where there is a statue of him outside the stadium.