As Atletico Madrid were completing the club-record signing of Joao Felix in the summer of 2019, the club wanted to find an unforgettable way to announce the arrival of a phenom, the leader of its new post-Antoine Griezmann project. Though he was just 19 years old, Joao’s artistry at Benfica during the 2018/19 season made him among the most desired young attackers in Europe, with a host of top clubs beyond Atletico reportedly after him. That April, he had scored a hat-trick in the Europa League quarter-final against Eintracht Frankfurt, alerting everyone as to his potential and his dynamic skillset.
When Atletico filmed him walking through the halls of the Museo del Prado and announced his signing on July 3, 2019, Joao had the world at his feet. He had just won a league title with Benfica as one of the Eagles’ key players and arrived in Madrid for an eye-watering €127 million transfer fee that Atletico would pay over the course of the player’s lengthy seven-year contract. The teenager didn’t seem an obvious fit in Diego Simeone’s attack as we knew it then, but his youth, desire to join Atleti, and his significant potential for growth generated optimism that player and coach would find common ground.
Five years later, that’s all he still is: potential and promise.
Joao Felix has finally departed Atletico Madrid on a permanent transfer. Despite the player’s preference to return to Barcelona – and thus continue scoring against Atletico, as he did twice last year – the Catalan club had other objectives in mind. The Jorge Mendes-engineered collapse of Samu Omorodion’s transfer to Chelsea (Atletico eventually sold him to Porto) opened the door for the Blues to sign Felix for an initial €50m fee and remove him from Atleti’s books for good. At last.
⏪FIVE YEARS AGO
Joao Felix signs for Atletico Madrid for just over €127m, in a deal that remains the fourth-most expensive in history.
🇵🇹THE wonderkid, Felix's arrival was to usher in a era at the Metropolitano, and lead their charge for supremacy in Spain as the third force pic.twitter.com/F5QhlUKksY
— Football España (@footballespana_) August 27, 2024
As with his other destinations, Joao’s second stint at Stamford Bridge has started well. He scored Chelsea’s final goal in Saturday’s 6-2 demolition of Julen Lopetegui’s Wolves and has revealed his happiness at returning to London, where he will team up with former Wolverhampton winger and fellow Gestifute client Pedro Neto. Last September, the Portugal international scored three times in his first two starts for Barcelona after begging the club to sign him – he scored seven goals the rest of the season. Joao’s 2022/23 season began with a hat trick of assists against Getafe – five months later, he moved on loan to Chelsea. And the very start of his Atleti career, in 2019/20, saw him win a penalty and score a goal within his first three games in a new league.
Fast starts have become one of Joao’s hallmarks, in addition to his sumptuous skill, fierce ball-striking, and ability to show any defender a clean pair of heels on his day. But he’s never been able to shake the reputation that he is not a team player, his unwillingness to work hard for the collective or play selflessly often undoing his contributions to the scoreboard. Joao’s uninspired performance in Barcelona’s crucial 4-2 loss to Girona at Montjuic last season is a prime example of this phenomenon and reminded viewers why then manager Xavi Hernandez was lukewarm over his arrival.
Joao Félix no te resuelve situaciones que un atacante TOP del Barça tiene que resolver. Una recepción en la 1a imagen te lleva a un disparo en la 4a.
Equipo largo, impaciente y que no viaja junto. Y tus atacantes no te resuelven estas situaciones. pic.twitter.com/4WsZrz6qAQ
— Albert Blaya Sensat (@Blayasensat) December 11, 2023
For Atletico, Felix represented the “biggest bet” in club history, owing to the record fee it took to pry him from Portugal amidst the €100m departure of Antoine Griezmann that same summer. In the opening months of the 2020/21 season, Joao was among the best players in La Liga; nagging ankle injuries saw him score only twice after that November’s international break. During a similar vein of form in the spring of 2022, he racked up seven goals and three assists in 10 games, pressing opposing players more than ever and seemingly emerging as the ‘new Griezmann’. But Felix ended that season injured too, and he never could convince Diego Simeone that he should be handed the keys to Atletico’s attack.
After coaching him for two years, Simeone lobbied hard for Griezmann to return – and by the autumn of 2022, Griezmann had not only returned, but he had begun to dominate again, even while playing 30 minutes per game as Atletico negotiated the conditions of his return from Barcelona. Simeone had hoped Felix would learn from Griezmann and the Frenchman would pass the torch to him; instead, new signing Julian Alvarez, already proven in football’s upper echelon, will be running the show at Atleti when Griezmann leaves again.
I was at the Metropolitano when Joao opened the scoring in Barca’s 3-0 win at the Metropolitano back in March. Before kick-off, Atleti fans burned his jersey and defaced his plaque commemorating 100 appearances for the club. There were loud whistles around the ground when he was introduced and whenever he touched the ball; the reaction when he tapped the ball in on 37 minutes was deafening. This, ultimately, is his legacy at Atleti; not the goals, not the 2021 league title, but the way he so brazenly turned his back on his teammates and his head coach, becoming a villain in hero’s clothing when he returned for preseason in July.
João Félix’s jersey has been set alight pic.twitter.com/wie2z5tIYo
— Into the Calderón (@intothecalderon) March 17, 2024
And that is how the story ends between Joao and Atletico, a reality that a couple strong preseason performances this summer did not alter. In all, Joao made 131 official appearances in all competitions for Los Rojiblancos, scoring 34 goals, providing 18 assists, and leaving much of the fanbase frustrated with his inconsistency before he used up all his credit by declaring how much he wanted to play for Barca.
Now on a six-year contract at Chelsea, Joao will get another chance to demonstrate the consistency and jerarquia – a term encompassing the standing, the leadership, the determination that marks elite players – that have eluded him since his record-breaking transfer to Atleti, Because even after four-and-a-half seasons in La Liga, Spanish football fans didn’t get to see those qualities regularly from a player who, even this year, was still being touted as a transformative figure for the league.
Jeremy Beren can be found on social media here, and if you’re hungry for more, find their excellent work or more Atletico Madrid content, head to Into the Calderon.
