It’s official. Kepa Arrizabalaga is the new Real Madrid goalkeeper. The Basque goalkeeper arrives on loan from Chelsea until the end of the season, although without a purchase option. In Chamartín he will be the substitute for Thibaut Courtois, who after suffering a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee last Thursday, one of the most feared injuries in football, will be out for at least eight months and misses practically all of the Campaign.
The enormous setback caused by the serious injury to the Belgian, indisputable under the sticks, forced a quick reaction in the offices of Concha Espina. Andriy Lunin, the alternative in goal, is far from convincing Carlo Ancelotti and his coaching staff as a guarantee option to assume the weight of the white goal throughout the course, for which the market tracking was immediately activated .
In this context, Kepa’s precarious situation at Chelsea helped a lot, where he has alternated stages as a starter and substitute. The departure of Edouard Mendy to Saudi football seemed to clear the way to the ‘blue’ starting eleven for the Ondárroa goalkeeper, but the signing of Robert Sánchez, also a Spaniard, a starter with Mauricio Pochettino on the first day of the Premier League against Liverpool, tipped the balance towards a definitive exit.
Bayern Munich had advanced talks with Kepa to be their starting goalkeeper after the departure of the Swiss Yann Sommer to Inter Milan. The Basque was convincing as a substitute for the injured Manuel Neuer but Real Madrid’s appearance on the scene changed everything. «We were close and in fact we wanted to present Kepa today. But he is Spanish and he chose Real Madrid,” explained Jan-Christian Dreesen, CEO of the German club, during Harry Kane’s presentation.
Kepa Arrizabalaga, who will appear before the media as a new Madrid player this Wednesday in Valdebebas, arrives backed by a career in which he has been international with Spain on 13 occasions. The 28-year-old goalkeeper was an old wish of the Madrid sports management. In fact, in the winter market of 2018, when he shone at Athletic, he was so close to signing that he even passed the medical examination. The operation was cut short because Zinedine Zidane, the Merengue coach, rejected the arrival of more goalkeepers so as not to bother Keylor Navas, his undisputed starter.
In this scenario, Kepa renewed with the lions and ended up signing later for Chelsea, who paid 80 million. Now, Kepa’s great supporter at Real Madrid is Luis Llopis, his goalkeeper coach, a guy who knows Arrizabalaga well since he worked on Joaquín Caparrós’ coaching staff at Athletic and the goalkeeper was still a promise at Lezama.
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