There are times watching Joao Felix play football that I ponder if he is a man out of time. An individual who was sucked into some vortex in the mid-’90s and thrown into an era that did not suit him.
Since his £113m departure from his boyhood club Benfica in the summer of 2019, the question of what is Joao Felix has been one of European football’s great mysteries. He certainly is technically gifted, he can dance around opponents with ease, and he can glide with the ball and make a crowd go “ooohh” and “ahhhh” but it is hard to describe him as one of the best on the continent.
His expensive loan to Chelsea was akin to a short gap year for a backpacking student looking to diversify their culture. Away from Diego Simeone’s school of hard knocks, the brief stint in west London was meant to reinvigorate Felix and prove his parent club had handled him horribly wrong.
