The £42m Chelsea signing that will take the club to the next level and save the season
Chelsea have continued to make headlines in their latest transfer spending spree
Joao Felix is set to end his troubled stint at Atletico Madrid for another opportunity in London. At the age of 19, the Portuguese maestro had the world at his feet during his first-ever season as a professional footballer, where he netted 20 goals in all competitions to help Benfica win the Portuguese Primeira Liga and reach the quarterfinals of the 2018/19 UEFA Europa League.
He made a move that summer which clearly was never going to bring out the best in him. It was easy to predict that, stylistically, he would not fit in at Atletico Madrid, and the last few years have proved that it was the wrong move—time is always provides the ultimate reveal, isn’t it?
Felix joined Atletico Madrid, and although the wages were good, it didn’t helped his career, culminating in him missing that crucial penalty at the Euros that knocked Portugal out and crushed Cristiano Ronaldo’s dream. After five years at Atletico, including two loan spells—one at Chelsea and the other at Barcelona—his agent, Jorge Mendes, has pulled the chestnut out of the blazing fire and given him the best opportunity to remind the world what he can do.
At Chelsea, he will play in a positional system at a club where, if he does well, it will elevate him to the level everyone anticipated he would reach. There’s no doubting the circumstances leading to his signing have left a few Blues fans sore and unhappy, but this is a brilliant signing for Chelsea and could easily be the best they’ve done since the coup that was Cole Palmer’s acquisition.
Felix failed to light up the Wanda Metropolitano not because he wasn’t good, but because his style was never going to match what Diego Simeone demands from his players. Of course, modern football demands that every player in every position works hard, but you can’t judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree. Likewise, magicians on the pitch aren’t going to put in the hard yards you’d expect from a workhorse.
At the new Chelsea, which is certainly not the same as the chaotic side he joined in the winter of 2023, he will be under a coach who will harness his technical skills in the attacking side of the game.
Enzo Maresca’s move to Chelsea isn’t just about winning but about how he achieves those wins in an eye-catching manner. He needs players for his aesthetic football, and Joao Felix fits that.
The former Benfica player can play everywhere in attack: wide left, wide right, as a number 10, and as a false 9. He will take some of the creative load off the shoulders of Palmer so the English youngster does not burn out. In his first stint at Chelsea, where he played in a disjointed side for half a season, the Portuguese managed to score four goals, so imagine what he could do playing for a better side with better players around him, coupled with the knowledge and experience from his first stint.
Chelsea’s Italian gaffer has proven to be his own man, especially if you believe his words that he’s making all the calls and not being influenced from upstairs. This sends a message that he wanted Joao Felix and that the signing isn’t an imposition from his employers.
When a coach asks for a mercurial signing and you get it for him, he has no excuse not to make it work, so the fans can rest assured that he will do everything to make the signing a success. But even in the worst case, if Felix just never really gets going, Chelsea are covered by the long-term contract he has signed, and he can be shipped out to Saudi Arabia, where he’s already so popular.