Chelsea loanee Nathan wants to stay at Atlético Mineiro for the rest of his career

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, our immediate futures are up in the air. It’s the same in the world of football as well, with many players, whose contracts end in June, not sure what will happen with them given the sport’s stoppage and unknown timeline for a return.

In Brazil, Chelsea loanee Nathan is one of the people who has no idea how things will play out once we get back to “normal”. He wants to stay at his current club, Atlético Mineiro, but he does not know whether the sentiment is mutual (even though the club’s president has told the press several times over the last few months that he wants to keep the midfielder beyond the June expiration of the loan contract).

“My contract ends in June, I don’t even know what I’ll do with my life, if they’ll ask me to stay [at Atlético] or not. I really want to stay, but it doesn’t rely solely on me and they haven’t looked for me yet to solve this.”

To showcase his loyalty, Nathan already rejected an offer to join Portuguese club Sporting in the previous transfer window. He wanted to stay at Galo, who eventually did work out a deal with Chelsea for a new loan.

“The [now former] Sporting head coach, Silas, was crazy about me heading to his club and he invited me to play there, but I refused because I wanted to stay here at Galo.

“I spoke to him that my priority was Galo. He even sent me a message, but I said that I wanted to stay here and it all worked out. Galo renewed [my contract] and I was very happy.”

In fact, Nathan is so happy with Atlético, he can see himself spending the rest of his career with the club, even.

“In my view, Atlético can sign me for five, six years and I would even end my career here.”

-Nathan; source: Super.FC

Nathan’s situation remains undefined, mostly because of Atlético’s inability to pay a transfer fee for his services. Once this is figured out, then we can see him moving out of Chelsea, for his own good.