Joao Felix, unwanted by Atletico and Chelsea, faces anxious career limbo

First they took away his favourite jersey. Then he angrily cast off his training bib. The rupture of the relationship between Joao Felix and Atletico Madrid – the club who not so long ago made him the costliest player in their history – is being vividly enacted through garments and gestures. Soon enough, there will be frosty words.

The Portuguese playmaker arrived at pre-season training with Atletico this week making clear his intention to be somewhere else as soon as possible.

It will not be West London, where he spent most of 2023 on loan at Chelsea, part of a fleet of young new year recruits at Stamford Bridge. He was the superstar among them but conspicuous because the deal that took him there was only as a loanee, on a costly six-month deal.

Joao Felix, 23, thought it would be a stepping stone to something more permanent. Almost immediately, the plan hit a snag. In the 58th minute of an otherwise promising first outing in the Premier League, a derby at Fulham, he received the first direct red card of his senior career.

That looked like an unfortunate footnote at the time, evidence of a footballer pushing too hard, too aggressively at the beginning of his audition. But once his loan was coming to an end and Chelsea had sacked a second manager of a disastrous season, there were strong hints that Joao Felix was not the right fit, and not even applying himself vigorously enough.

“He has to have the work ethic, the team nature about him,” said Frank Lampard, the caretaker who oversaw the limp end of Chelsea’s chaotic campaign, explaining why he tended to put Joao Felix on the substitutes’ bench as often as in the starting XI.

Back at Atletico, Chelsea having made it clear they would not be extending their interest in the