Lucas Piazon has no regrets about decision to join Chelsea 7 years and 7 loans ago

Lucas Piazon’s “Chelsea nightmare” is all but over, was a standard line last week when his latest (and last?) loan to Chievo in Serie A for the second half of the season was announced. It is his seventh loan (if we count his two seasons at Fulham as two separate loans) since joining the Blues in January 2012, but with just six months left on his contract, his tenure as a Chelsea player — career appearances: 3 — is indeed all but over.

But was it a nightmare? Perhaps it felt like that at times — one tends not to use phrases like “waste of time” (which he later clarified) or “makes no sense” (which he didn’t or didn’t need to) when discussing happy situations — but he was always a willing Loan Army participant. In fact, he’s traveled around to almost all of Europe’s big leagues during those seven years, playing in Spain (Málaga), Germany (Eintracht Frankfurt), England (Chelsea, plus Reading and Fulham in the Championship), and now Italy as well.

He’s learned something in all those places, and thus has no regrets.

“It’s true, at 17 [Juventus] wanted me as well as Chelsea, but I chose the Premier League. In England I found myself in front of so many strong players and this made me realise that I had to work harder.

“I have no regrets, I can’t say what player I would be today if I had taken a different path in the past. As boy I followed the Italian league a lot and I imagined being in their place one day. I dreamed of being like Ronaldo.”

-Lucas Piazon; source: CalcioMercato via Sport Witness

Piazon gave it one more (final?) go at Chelsea this season, making a surprise bench appearance against Spurs in the League Cup semifinal second leg, but otherwise not really getting any closer to the action than the training ground.

He was on the bench for his first match as a Chievo player as well; hopefully he won’t have to wait too long to make his debut.