CHELSEA’S longest serving player Lucas Piazon has joined Sporting Braga, EIGHT years after his last Blues game.
Portuguese side Braga confirmed the signing on Thursday with the attacking midfielder penning a deal until 2025.
Braga announced the arrival of Lucas Piazon onlineCredit: Twitter @SCBragaOficial
The 26-year-old leaves Stamford Bridge for good after three first-team outings, seven loan spells and a broken leg.
He had spent the last 18 months on loan at Portuguese outfit Rio Ave but now becomes Braga’s seventh signing of the season.
It ends a decade on the books in West London for the Brazilian after arriving from Sao Paolo in 2011.
He impressed immediately within Cobham’s fabled youth set-up, breaking into Andre Villas-Boas’ Chelsea first team less than a year later.
After a couple of sightings on the Blues’ bench during his first season, Piazon made his debut in September 2012 aged 18.
He stared a 6-0 League Cup romp over Wolves and even provided an assist for Ryan Bertrand.
An appearance in the next round against Manchester United followed, as did a Premier League debut that December in an 8-0 win over Aston Villa, with things looking promising for the youngster.
But upon signing for Malaga on loan in January 2013, Piazon would never feature for Chelsea again.
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Lucas Piazon was Chelsea’s longest servantCredit: PA:Empics Sport
After 14 goalless appearances for the LaLiga side, Piazon was soon heading to Chelsea feeder side Vitesse.
He bagged 11 goals and eight assists in 31 appearances for Eredivisie side, but that wasn’t enough to get him back in the Blues’ plans.
A year in German football followed with Eintracht Frankfurt before he found himself playing in West London again… but for rivals Fulham – via a season at Reading.
In two years at Craven Cottage, Piazon helped Slavisa Jokanovic’s men back into the Premier League.
In the first half of the 2018-19 season Piazon returned to Chelsea, and remarkably was included on Maurizio Sarri’s bench for the League Cup semi-final second leg triumph against Tottenham – before being loaned to Chievo just a week later.
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Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
