Chelsea are keeping a very close eye on Geovany Quenda’s rise at Sporting. A Bola now explain why the youngster has only just “exploded” into form for the Lisbon club.
The Portuguese outlet reports the 18-year-old, who will move to Chelsea in the summer, returned from last season drained. He’d been tired out, physically and mentally.
Chelsea’s work to sign him will have obviously been a part of that.
Across 2024/25, Quenda featured in an exhausting 60 matches for both Sporting and Portugal’s youth teams. He only finished his campaign on 21 June after the Under-21 European Championship.
The long run of games, followed by just a short summer break, left him struggling to regain his rhythm.
According to A Bola, signs of fatigue were still evident during pre-season. That encouraged coach Rui Borges to manage the player carefully.
Rather than rush him back into the starting XI, Borges kept him on the bench for the opening games, using him in shorter bursts while he rebuilt his form and confidence.
That patient approach paid off. When Quenda finally started on 13 September against Famalicão, he made an immediate impact by setting up Pedro Gonçalves’ equaliser with a superb assist.
A week later, against Kairat Almaty, he scored his first senior goal at Estádio José Alvalade – a brilliant moment highlighted by the local press that marked the start of his resurgence.
Since then, the winger has been one of Sporting’s standout performers, impressing again against Moreirense, Estoril, Napoli and Braga. Portugal under-21 coach Luís Freire also shared the excitement over the youngster.
A Bola notes that Chelsea, who are investing around £43.4 million (€50.78 million) to sign him, continue to monitor his progress closely. They even have access to analytical data from his training sessions in Lisbon.
Now fully recovered and back in form, Quenda is showing the kind of maturity and technical ability that convinced Chelsea. The Premier League club are making sure they don’t miss a single step of his progress in Portugal.