Thibaut Courtois‘ injury caused an earthquake in the goalkeeper market on Thursday morning. Several deals that seemed well underway or practically closed were halted, pending the decisions that Real Madrid had to make to replace their goalkeeper. One of them was Kepa Arrizabalaga, the Chelsea goalkeeper whose loan deal with Bayern Munich was practically closed at the time.
Because Kepa has stopped his move to the Bavarian team and at this time is heading towards a loan without a mandatory purchase clause, but to Real Madrid. Now, he’s more likely to return to Spain than to go to Germany.
At Real Madrid, since Thursday, the movements have been constant and there was a first contact with Kepa that same afternoon. These approaches first made the goalkeeper hesitate and then put the brakes on his move to Bayern.
Kepa‘s departure from Chelsea has to do with the arrival of Robert Sanchez and the club’s intention to give prominence to the new signing from Brighton ahead of the Basque goalkeeper.
Thomas Tuchel had called Kepa to convince him, but Courtois‘ injury changed the plans.
Bono, the first choice
The Sevilla goalkeeper was the best placed to replace Courtois, but problems arose. The fact of losing Bono for a month for the Africa Cup of Nations cooled the interest in the capital.
Despite the Moroccan goalkeeper’s desire, the fact that Real Madrid had such an advantageous market opportunity as that of acquiring Kepa on loan without a compulsory purchase clause derailed Bono‘s plans, for which Los Blancos would have had to make a significant outlay.
