Sport

Joao Felix’s next move will prove vital

Joao Felix is at a career crossroads. Back at Atlético Madrid, where he has never quite fit in, and facing a manager in Diego Simeone whom he is known not to see eye to eye with, the future appears bleak.

The loan to Chelsea in January was supposed to be his clean slate, but it was yet another false start. Felix should have been among this generation’s leading lights; his emergence at Benfica pointed that way. He was electric, intelligent and different, even at one of the best clubs for youth production, he stood out. When he was a teenager, every club in Europe wanted him. This was a point when football was searching for new heroes, with so many of the game’s elite players entering their career swansong. Opportunities were there, and it felt like a natural course of events for the Portuguese forward to take on the baton, particularly from countryman Cristiano Ronaldo, who wasn’t going to carry the national team on his shoulders forever.

But that next move was crucial; it had to be right, in the summer of 2019, he joined Atleti for €126m. Immediately, it didn’t make sense; Simeone’s side, albeit attempting to evolve tactically, seemed too stringent for a free spirit like Felix, who has always thrived with more self-responsibility than Simeone, whose approach has always been predicated on the strength of the unit and each players’ role within it.

Atleti built a team on a relative budget under Simeone, too. Everything was minimalist and tight-knit, in order to build the all important siege mentality that helps Simeone’s tactics and management style thrive, going on to win La Liga for the first time in 18 years in 2014 and coming within minutes of winning the Champions League final against Real Madrid in the same season. Felix was an immediate outlier at that price, and looking back it feels like a desperate attempt to replace Antoine Griezmann, who joined Barcelona in the same summer.

But Felix was never going to replace Griezmann in crucial ways, notably his work rate and ability to defend from the front. Signing Felix to fill that gap was never going to work, and it has worked out that way.

There is no way back for him in Madrid, and now he’s in danger of his career seriously stalling. Chelsea proved another poor choice on his part; he arrived as one of the signings in the most expensive window for a club in English football history. The Blues spent over £300m, with their total spend including the summer doubling that figure. Felix’s loan fee was £11m, and he scored just four goals in 16 Premier League games. If anything summed up his difficulty in west London, it was a red card on his debut against Fulham.

Again, though, there were factors that were always going to make it tough for him to make an impact at Stamford Bridge. With so many players signed, it was difficult to find a cohesive and consistent team, and Graham Potter, the manager who was appointed part-way through the season, couldn’t impose himself. To make matters worse, Chelsea’s biggest issue was scoring goals, and Felix has never been prolific.

Unsurprisingly, Chelsea opted against making his loan permanent. Having signed Christian Nkunku and Nicolas Jackson already this summer, they are clearly looking for more speed and power in attack under Mauricio Pochettino.

Whoever signs him needs to make him a talismanic figure again. Even at the age of 18, he thrived with that responsibility at Benfica. There are plenty of elite clubs who need a special player in attack like him, so this shouldn’t be a case of him having to drop away from the elite.

Felix is back at the drawing board, needing a good fit for next season to get his career back on track. At just 23, and with his talent, all is far from lost, but this is a pivotal moment for him.