Kepa close to completing Real Madrid move

Kepa Arrizabalaga is close to becoming Real Madrid’s new goalkeeper. Reports by Sky Germany have been confirmed by AS – the Chelsea keeper has rejected a move to Bayern, which looked on the cards until Real Madrid’s interest appeared, and aims to join the capital club on loan to replace the injured Courtois. In principle, it would be a standard, one-year loan, with no purchase option.

real Madrid turned to Kepa even though Bono was the number one candidate to join as a replacement for Courtois. But the conditions to sign of the Moroccan goalkeeper were not so favorable. First was the cost – a minimum of €20 million, a figure that Sevilla demanded. Another drawback is that Bono would likely be called up by Morocco for the Africa Cup of Nations in January and February which would mean he could miss up to 13 official matches for Madrid while on international duty.

With Kepa on the other hand, there are a number of advantages. As it is only a loan deal, it is much more economically affordable. Madrid will take over the responsibility of paying his wages, and possibly pay chelsea some kind of fee although those details are not known at this time. Kepa is a player who Madrid knows well and he has long been on the club’s radar. In 2018, when he was still at Athletic, he came very close to signing for Los Blancos – he even passed a medical, but in the end Zidane pulled the plug on the operation because he didn’t want more goalkeepers. Keylor Navas was his first-choice.

Faced with such a scenario, Kepa renewed with the Bilbaos and ended up later going to chelsea for €80 million a few months later. Madrid’s current goalkeeping coach Luis Llopis, knows him very well from his time as a member of Joaquín Caparrós’ coaching staff (2008-11), in Bilbao, when Kepa was still a promising young teenager in Lezama. Llopis holds the Basque keeper in high regard, so he would place a key role in helping the player settle in if a deal is struck.

Although it seemed that kepa was heading for Bayern, recent events have completely turned the situation around. Real Madrid’s call and the possibility of returning to Spain, after getting married this summer, are important incentives for the 28-year-old. Five years after is move to the capital hit the rocks, he is very close to defending the goal at the Bernabéu.