Pelenda Joshua Tunga Dasilva was born on 23 October 1998 in Ilford, east London. He joined Arsenal's academy as a child and spent more than a decade in the Gunners' system, developing as a left-footed midfielder with technical quality and a powerful ball-striking profile. When the first-team pathway at Arsenal narrowed, he turned down a new contract and joined Brentford in August 2018 as a nineteen-year-old looking for senior football.
Dasilva needed time to become a regular at Brentford, but his talent became clear in the Championship. His curling left-footed goals became a trademark, and the 2019-20 season was his first major senior statement: he played a heavy role in midfield and contributed ten league goals as Brentford reached the play-off final. Early in the following campaign he signed a new contract, but a serious hip problem interrupted his best momentum and kept him out for much of the promotion season.
At Brentford in the Premier League, Dasilva's story has been one of class repeatedly interrupted by injury. He returned strongly in 2022-23, playing in most league matches and scoring an emotional opening-day goal against Leicester City. Further hamstring and ACL injuries then limited his involvement again. The club handed him another contract in 2024, and within this Brentford record he remains a midfielder whose technical ceiling is clear even if availability has shaped the public view of his career.
Internationally, Dasilva represented England across multiple youth levels, including the teams around the 2017 Under-19 European Championship-winning generation. He has not moved into the senior England squad, partly because of the intensity of competition in midfield and partly because injuries removed key windows in which he might have built a stronger case. His international profile is therefore best understood as a strong youth pedigree rather than a senior pathway.
Dasilva is a left-footed central midfielder, around 1.84 m, who can operate as an eight, a deeper ball-progressor or an attacking midfielder depending on structure. His best qualities are balance when receiving, weight of pass and the ability to strike curling shots from the edge of the box. In style he has echoes of Mousa Dembele's carrying strength mixed with a more direct shooting instinct. The challenge has never been talent; it has been keeping that talent on the pitch long enough to define a full season.