In news that has been coming for some time now, Filipe Luis has officially left Chelsea FC to return to Atlético Madrid, the club from where he joined the Blues just one year ago.
The Spanish club announced on their Twitter earlier today that the left-back has rejoined them on a four year deal:
¡OFICIAL! Acuerdo con el @ChelseaFC para el traspaso de @filipeluis: http://t.co/qqKdIdIb7y #BienvenidoFilipe pic.twitter.com/75fns6ar8z
— Atlético de Madrid (@Atleti) July 28, 2015
The player himself also took to the popular social media site to express his gratitude to the Chelsea family for the last year, despite it not turning out exactly as he would have wanted:
Thank you @ChelseaFC https://t.co/eCMgfRwar7
— Filipe Luis (@filipeluis) July 28, 2015
There is no denying that this a good move for the Brazilian. Having established himself as one of the world’s best full-backs under the tutelage of Diego Simeone at Atlético, Luis followed Diego Costa to West London for a fee around the £16million mark last summer. While he probably had designs on being an ever-present in the Blues line-up, he was unable to unseat Cesar Azpilicueta who was evidently Jose Mourinho’s preferred option.
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At the age of 29, there is still plenty of top level football left in him and a move back to the Vicente Calderón should ensure that he will be able to make the most of it. This is especially true as Simeone failed to find a suitable replacement for him last season.
The full-back made 26 appearances for the Blues, although only nine of those were Premier League starts. He never disappointed when given playing time, but just was not outstanding enough to warrant Mourinho dropping Azpilicueta.
From Chelsea’s point of view they will be losing a world-class player who acted as back-up to the first team, and thus will undoubtedly be worse off. Having said that, such a situation is usually not compatible in the long run leaving no-one surprised by the move.
Perhaps credit should even be given to all parties involved that allowed such a swift reversal for a decent price. MARCA reports that the fee will be around €16million (£11.3million) with Chelsea making a loss.
However, this does now finally pave the way for the official arrival of Abdul Baba Rahman. The Augsburg full-back has been linked with the club throughout the summer with a deal supposedly already in place. The only issue holding back an announcement was an inability to offload Luis so expect the confirmation in the coming days.
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In the meantime, all that is left is to thank Luis for his brief, yet graceful service. There was no instance of him moaning about a lack of playing time, or speaking ill of the club in the press. He turned up to work everyday and conducted himself with great class.
Luis is an immense talent who will certainly flourish again as he returns ‘a casa’. I’ll leave you with his only goal in a Chelsea shirt: a stunning free-kick against Derby County.
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