Douglas Costa reveals how he ended up at Bayern Munich instead of Chelsea

We let another one get away!  Why did we let him go to Bayern?  He said he wanted to come here!?  Why did we choose to sign Juan Cuadrado instead? Why did we panic buy Pedro?  And so on.

The fact that Douglas Costa is tearing up the joint over in Bavaria, having signed with the German champions this past summer while Chelsea seemingly passed on him in both transfer windows of 2015 rankles even more.  We could've had the ex-Shakhtar man, who's recently began starring for Brazil as well, to add to the ex-Shakhtar man we already had (and then finish our collection by signing Alex Teixeira, too)!  It would've been perfect.  Treble assured.

While there's no guarantee that signing Douglas Costa would've turned out as well for Chelsea as it has for Bayern, the generally accepted narrative was that it was Chelsea's decision to pass on the attacker.  But, as he tells it, it was actually the other way around.

"Chelsea wanted me too. They had a strong interest in me and went to great lengths for me - I wanted to play for Pep Guardiola at Bayern. I deliberately chose Pep and Bayern because I know I can learn a lot more here."

-Douglas Costa; source: BILD via Inside Futbol

While that doesn't exactly lessen the blow of missing out on the 25-year-old's talents, and it's never fun to get picked last in gym class, it does help a bit to know that we at least tried, and apparently tried very hard, to get him.