PLAYER PROFILE

Da Silva Eduardo

Position: Forward

Height: 5'9

Weight: 11st 0lbs

Date of Birth: 1983-02-25 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Da Silva Eduardo

Arsenal signed Croatia international striker Eduardo da Silva from Dinamo Zagreb in July 2007.

The 24-year-old put pen to paper on a four-year contract to fill the void created by former captain Thierry Henry's £16million departure to Barcelona the previous month.

The Brazilian-born forward moved to Europe at the age of 15 and took Croatian nationality in 2002.

Eduardo has netted seven times in 12 international appearances - including one of the goals in Croatia's 2-0 Euro 2008 qualifying victory over England in Zagreb last October.

He also scored the first competitive goal at Arsenal's Emirates Stadium when the Gunners defeated Dinamo 5-1 on aggregate in August 2006 during the qualifying rounds for last season's Champions League.

He made a promising start to life at Arsenal in the 2007/08 season, but it was cut cruelly short in February 2008 when he was fouled by Birmingham City's Martin Taylor and suffered a horrendous injury, leaving him with a broken ankle and broken shin. This ruled him out of the rest of the campaign and Croatia's Euro 2008 campaign.