Courtois presentation at Bernabeu set for 13:30 local time on Thursday — report

Further confirmation of wheels being in motion on multiple fronts, with Thibaut Courtois heading to Madrid presumably pretty soon now that Kepa’s €80m release clause has been paid and he’s ready to step in at Chelsea as the replacement starting goalkeeper. Courtois had been hanging out in Belgium, just waiting for the deal that he forced to get done, get done. Well done, Thibaut.

Real Madrid are not in as much of a rush as Chelsea to get the deal done since their season doesn’t actually start for another week and their transfer window is open through the end of the month. But there is no reason to delay things any more either, and before their first league match a week from Sunday, they do play in the UEFA Super Cup against Atlético Madrid (Wednesday, August 15).

While some have already claimed that the deal is done, Terreur expects the deal to be finalized tomorrow. Other reports have even set a presentation date and time already, namely at 1:30pm local time tomorrow (Thursday). Real have just wrapped up their USA Tour with a victory last night, but now the home crowd can celebrate as well. They do tend to turn out in droves for these sorts of unveilings, so that should be fun for Courtois, who won the 2013 Copa del Rey against Real with big local rivals Atlético in that stadium.

Less fun is that Chelsea are only netting €35-40m for him, so about half of Kepa, but it’s too late to fix that situation so we’re just going to have deal with it.