Although they have received a lot of criticism over the years, Chelsea’s transfer strategy of investing heavily in young players has produced some genuine stars in recent years.
The most obvious example is Cole Palmer. He was only 21 when he moved to Stamford Bridge, but has now contributed 73 goals in 101 games for the club.
Estevao is even younger than the Englishman and has already contributed five goals for the club in just a few months.
Chelsea’s conveyor belt of talent looks set to continue after they signed a pre-contract agreement with Ecuadorian wonder Dainar Ordonez, but could be further enhanced by another great player set to join the likes of Enzo Maresca in the summer.
Who is Deiner Ordonez?
On Friday night, seemingly out of nowhere, transfer expert Fabrizio Romano announced the news that Chelsea had beaten the other top three teams to reach an agreement to sign Ordonez.
However, due to regulations regarding foreign players under 18, the Ecuadorian treasure will not actually join the Blues until January 2028.
So why did the club go to great lengths to sign such a young player?
Now, despite not even making his senior debut for Independiente del Valle, the promising defender is attracting considerable attention within the South American team’s youth structure.
For example, he was promoted to the U17s at the age of 14, then performed well at the U15s and U17s before being promoted to the Ecuadorian U20s at the age of 15.
He became the youngest player to represent the team at the South American Under-20 Championship earlier this year and has now appeared in four games for the team.
Como scout Felix Johnston described the youngster as a player who was “very good in the air” and would become “one of the best central defenders in the world” and described him as having “a completely different talent”.
Similarly, analyst Ben Mattinson described him as a “huge potential cornerback with physicality and athleticism far beyond his years.”
All in all, although it is still too early, Chelsea appear to have signed a superstar of the future with Ordonez, but they will also be adding another player of even greater talent in the summer.
A bigger star than Chelsea’s Ordonez
The good news for Chelsea is that there will be a number of young talents heading to Stamford Bridge in the summer, but Dastan Satpayev may be the most exciting of them all.
The Blues signed an incredibly exciting player from Kazakhstan’s Kairat Almaty in February this year for a fee of around €4 million (approximately £3.5 million).
Being only 17, he won’t be able to join the club until next season, but it might have been best for him to spend another year in his home country anyway.
After all, he has played far more senior football than he ever did in England, but he is more than just making up the team’s numbers. He is one of their main characters.
For example, the dynamic game-changing forward played 29 games and 2,081 minutes for the first team last season, scoring 15 goals and providing seven assists.
Satpayev’s 24/25 | |
|---|---|
Appearance | 29 |
begins | twenty one |
minutes | 2081 |
the goal | 15 |
assist | 7 |
Number of goals involved per match | 0.75 |
Hours per goal involvement | 94.59′ |
All stats via Transfermarkt | |
This means that on average he is involved in a goal every 1.31 games, or 94.59 minutes. That’s a truly impressive return for anyone, let alone a 17-year-old, and helps lend credence to one analyst describing him as a “future Ballon d’Or winner.”
As if that wasn’t impressive enough, he has also featured in 11 games in this season’s Champions League, seven of them in the qualifying rounds and four in the main competition.
He played the entire game in the away game against Inter Milan, and even though they lost 2-1, he did not feel out of place against last season’s finalists.
After all, the future of young players is notoriously difficult to predict, but Chelsea look to have some very promising players, with Satpayev being the most exciting.