Chelsea are better off with Diego Costa in Brazil, rewriting history
By George Perry
The Atlantic Ocean is currently protecting Chelsea from even more drama in a week, month and summer where they have had plenty thereof. The Blues have nothing to gain from compelling Diego Costa to return to Cobham.
Diego Costa has apparently retained the services of one of the world’s top public relations firms. His 100% spontaneous, totally impromptu, sent-the-reporter-to-walk-up-to-his-front-door-unannounced interview with the Daily Mail gave him the platform to relate his version of the last year or three. In response to his too good to check sponsored content, Chelsea are ordering Costa to report to Cobham for training with the reserves.
You can choose your analogy for bad ideas: inviting the fox into the hen-house, having your ex over to meet your current while your side lives next door…
Diego Costa is playing a game of chicken with Chelsea, who in turn are trying to strong-arm a response. Costa said he is willing to spend the season in Brazil without getting paid rather than return to west London. “I am waiting for Chelsea to set me free. I didn’t want to leave. I was happy,” he now says.
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Neither he nor his representatives can honestly believe his latest revisions. Even if they somehow convinced themselves, though, they would still know that a simple visit to DuckDuckGo would skewer every last word. But they know that Chelsea have limited options that will not either cost them more money or make matters worse in the press. So Costa is putting the ball entirely in Chelsea’s court, feigning resigned passivity to the fate of the club he so dearly loves.
More than anything, they know never to waste a crisis, especially when it is someone else’s. Chelsea have many more and more pressing matters to attend to than Costa’s image rehabilitation. At the top of the list are the transfers. Chelsea are in a tight transfer market with hardly any leverage and plenty of desperation. Every selling club knows how weak the Blues are on the pitch, and how vulnerable the team and the club are in the press and public space.
The campaign by the Costa camp has created two paths of least resistance for Chelsea. On the one hand, Chelsea can quickly and quietly give Costa what he wants so the team can get on with the business of the next two weeks. Or they can take a strong-arm approach, creating more sympathy for Costa and giving one more example of how they are treating him like a “criminal.”
Heads Costa wins. Tails Chelsea lose.
Costa’s representatives knew that the Blues, stubborn that they are from the owner to the manager and desperate to look like an alpha as they move for last-minute transfers, would choose the latter. Costa’s interview was a perfect troll, and Chelsea are playing their part.
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Diego Costa is only nominally a Chelsea player, so this is hardly an issue of player power. Player power infests a locker room. It does not spread across the ocean by text, tweet or in a completely off-the-cuff look-who’s-at-the-door-dad interview. By ordering Costa back to Chelsea, the club invite real discontent into the squad. Costa probably does have close friends among the existing team. They need to focus on their team, not on him.
Chelsea are not in the complete state of panicky meltdown that many headlines would have you believe. Costa strolling around Cobham – even if he was isolated with the reserves – would move them one step closer to that grim state.
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Everything is already so wrong and awful in this entire affair. Chelsea have to do the uncharacteristic thing and not make it worse.