Portuguese international striker Joao Felix travelled to London on Tuesday, underwent the relevant medical and completed his signing for Chelsea on Wednesday, with whom he has signed for seven years and to which he returns a year later, this time transferred for 50 million euros fixed plus 10 in variables from Atlético de Madrid, following the agreement reached on Monday by both clubs.
“Atlético de Madrid wishes João Félix the best of luck in his future professional endeavours,” the club said on its official website.
“Chelsea are delighted to announce the permanent signing of Joao Felix from Atletico Madrid. Joao has signed a seven-year contract at Stamford Bridge and will join his new teammates in training in the coming days,” the London club announced.
“I’m really happy to be back at Chelsea and I can’t wait to get started. I can see some familiar faces from the last time I was here, which is always nice. I loved my time here before and I told my friends and family that I would love to return to the Premier League one day. To do that with Chelsea is a great feeling and I’m excited to be back,” the footballer explained to his new team’s official media.
Five years after paying 120 million euros for him to Benfica, Joao Félix leaves for 50 million plus ten in variables, without playing a single match with Atlético since January 8, 2023 (he went on loan to Chelsea and then to Barcelona) and with a total of 131 games under Diego Simeone, 84 as a starter and 23 complete, with 33 goals and 16 assists. He was LaLiga EA Sports champion with the rojiblancos in 2020-21.
It is already the end of the cycle at Joao Félix’s Atlético, as predictable as it has been delayed in recent times until the club has been lowering its financial demands to the same extent that the attacker, loaned first to Chelsea in the second half of the 2022-23 season and to Barcelona for the entire 2023-24 season, has been steadily losing market value.
When he was bought by Atlético, for the 120 million euros of the price of his release clause, the specialist website ‘Transfermarkt’ set his value at 100 million euros; when he went on loan to Chelsea, in the winter of 2023, it was at 50 and now, when he returned from Barcelona, it fell to 30 million euros. A 70 percent decrease from one moment to the next, throughout five seasons in which he did not blossom as expected.
On 3 July 2019, after making his mark at Benfica, he was signed by Atlético, who presented him as a “pure talent” with images of him at the Prado Museum in Madrid to replace Antoine Griezmann who left for Barcelona at the same time. The one-minute and 37-second video proclaimed him a future star.
His stature has not gone that far at Atlético, with the feeling of a failed gamble on both sides. For the red-and-white club, due to the highest investment in its history that it is now selling for half the price, but also for the player himself, who also had the possibility of going to Manchester City at the time and opted to go to the Metropolitano. It has been irregular.
It is true that he was champion of LaLiga 2020-21, with a more than remarkable first part of the competition, and that he has shown details of all his talent at certain times, such as the final part of the 2021-22 season, when he led his team to qualification for the Champions League, as well as that his inconsistency and some injuries relegated him to a lesser plane than expected when he signed his contract with Atlético. It lasted until 2029.
The sporting conflict with Diego Simeone, latent before, but already clearly visible in 2022-23, when, before the 2022 World Cup, he was relegated to the bench in ten of the twelve matches preceding the international tournament, convinced Joao Félix that his future was then far from the Metropolitano and the Argentine coach, loaned to Chelsea for precisely six months.
At Stadium Bridge, where he will now return, he did not gain value back then either. He played 20 games, with 1,188 minutes, 14 starts (70 percent of the games he was available), four goals and zero assists. At the end of the season, the new coach, Mauricio Pochettino, did not even consider buying him. He returned to Atlético to leave.
His next destination, also on loan for one season, was Barcelona, who showed interest in continuing to count on him in the new season, but that has not been the case. With the Blaugrana team, he played 44 games, 54.5 percent as a starter (24), over two thousand minutes (52.2 percent of the possible minutes), with ten goals and six assists.
After joining the pre-season this summer, while awaiting a new destination, he played two friendly matches with Atlético, scoring two goals, and was included in the squad for the first matchday of LaLiga EA Sports against Villarreal, but the countdown had already begun for his departure, now definitive, from the red-and-white team, who offered him to Chelsea to unblock the transfer in the opposite direction of the English midfielder Conor Gallagher.
– JOAO FÉLIX’S NUMBERS WITH ATLÉTICO DE MADRID AND SIMEONE:
– Titles: 1 (LaLiga 2020-21).
– Matches: 131 (96 in La Liga, 5 in the Copa del Rey, 3 in the Spanish Super Cup and 27 in the Champions League).
– Minutes: 7,706 (5,242 in La Liga, 270 in the Copa del Rey, 281 in the Spanish Super Cup and 1,913 in the Champions League).
– Starter: 84 (55 in La Liga, 4 in the Copa del Rey, 3 in the Spanish Super Cup and 22 in the Champions League).
– Complete: 23 (12 in La Liga, 3 in the Copa del Rey, 2 in the Spanish Super Cup and 6 in the Champions League).
– Goals: 33 (24 in La Liga, 2 in the Copa del Rey and 7 in the Champions League).
– Assists: 16 (13 in La Liga, 1 in the Copa del Rey and 2 in the Champions League).
– Victories: 65 (54 in La Liga, 2 in the Copa del Rey, 1 in the Spanish Super Cup and 8 in the Champions League).
– Draws: 34 (25 in La Liga, 1 in the Spanish Super Cup and 8 in the Champions League).
– Defeats: 32 (17 in La Liga, 3 in the Copa del Rey, 1 in the Spanish Super Cup and 11 in the Champions League).
