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As he leaves for Chelsea the €126m signing has not flopped in Madrid, but neither has he flourished in the way many hopedYou’ve got your El Greco, your Velázquez, your Goya, and your João Félix. Well, you did have: turns out, this artist wasn’t in the right place and has gone now, on loan in London.The day Atlético Madrid announced his arrival, they did so with a video shot at the Prado museum, then celebrating its 200th birthday. In it, the Portugal forward strolls among some of the finest paintings on earth. He contemplates the Las Meninas, Titian’s Adam and Eve, and eventually turns to the camera, the reveal performed before Goya’s Dance on the Banks of the Manzanares, a nod to their old Vicente Calderón home alongside the river, by then half-demolished, a motorway running through the middle. It doesn’t take much to see the metaphor and it’s not necessary either. Instead, it is written. “Pure talent,” they call him. Continue reading...