Chelsea Successfully Sign Kalidou Koulibaly

DBasia.news – So far, Chelsea have just signed two big players, namely Raheem Sterling and Kalidou Koulibaly.

One winger and one centre-back. Sterling will add a new variety of play to Thomas Tuchel’s forward line, while Koulibaly will immediately fill the post left by Antonio Rudiger and Andreas Christensen.

Koulibaly is aging (31), but in the light of Thiago Silva’s successful experience at Chelsea in his old age, Koulibaly can follow in his footsteps. Moreover, the matter of experience and quality is unquestionable.

The former Metz and Genk player has 62 caps with the Senegal national team and has played for eight years at Napoli. Chelsea bought it from Napoli for 34 million pounds.

Chelsea’s role in pushing for an immediate transfer is visible, but so is the behind-the-scenes role of Edouard Mendy, Koulibaly’s compatriot in the Senegalese national team, and also Jorginho who incidentally is a former team-mate at Napoli.

Jorginho’s ‘agent’ has been working since 2021 to bring Koulibaly to Stamford Bridge. At first he joked when texting back like friends as usual, but Jorginho slowly saw the chance of reuniting with Koulibaly at Chelsea.

“Last year!” Jorginho laughed as he answered when to start persuading Koulibaly. “A lot. We always joke, ‘Let’s play together again, play together again.’ It never happened right and when we saw it was okay maybe it’s not a joke anymore, we started to be more serious about it.”

“I pushed! I said come to Chelsea. And he was like ah yes I want to. I said ‘Just come’ because we haven’t played together for some time and share a changing room or being together again,” he explained as quoted by the Mirror.

Jorginho also sees Koulibaly as the ideal replacement for Rudiger because both of them are fighters at the back.

“He is an experienced player, not only in the field. You will see that he is a brilliant defender, strong, fast. He plays the ball. But as a person, someone in the changing room he is extraordinary. He’s an amazing, good guy and brings a lot to this club,” added Jorginho.

Finally, the Italian national team midfielder believes Koulibaly can inherit well the number 26 at Chelsea, which incidentally has been worn by legend and strong captain John Terry, who also plays as a central defender.

“He has a big personality and I’m pretty sure and really hope he does well in the same way. He certainly won’t have the same impact because of the years as all history Terry has and he respects him. Terry. But I hope his jersey number brings him good luck,” Jorginho hoped.

“I think Kalidou will realize the importance of the jersey number over time. Also that he will bring respect to the number, show respect and value.”