Chelsea has sealed the purchases of two stars raised by Manchester United boss Ruben Amorim, as Sporting Lisbon announced $81 million worth of transfers on Wednesday.
Geovany Quenda and Dario Essugo will soon be property of Chelsea, according to Sporting, as the Blues agreed to buy the former for approximately $57 million and the latter for about $24 million.
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Quenda will stay with Sporting for the 2025-26 season and join Chelsea the following summer, while Essugo is on loan to Las Palmas in La Liga this season but will join Chelsea for the start of the 2025-26 season.
The 17-year-old Quenda is already an elite ball mover in the midfield who has a goal and four assists this season. He’ll turn 18 next month and already has 44 senior appearances for Sporting including 10 in the Champions League accounting for 723 minutes. Quenda’s been called into four Portugal national team camps but has yet to win a cap.
It’s a huge fee, probably made larger by Quenda’s constant links with an Amorim reunion at Manchester United. Having a player that young who cut his teeth in Amorim’s system was a natural draw for the Red Devils. Now he’s moving to London.
But it’s also a huge fee to pay for a player who will not join your club for another season and a quarter, and Amorim needs impact players now. When it comes to Sporting, center back Goncalo Ignacio and forward Viktor Gyokeres would be more alarming races for United to lose in the market.
Essugo, 20, has been capped at every youth level from U15-U21 by Portugal but is yet to make his senior national team debut. A hard-tackling, game-reading midfielder, Essugo ranks in the 97th percentile in interceptions and FBRef.com’s metric compares him with Aston Villa’s Amadou Onana and Tottenham’s Yves Bissouma.
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