Renato Veiga: Bargain Calafiori or another Mudryk mess?

Robin Bairner

6 Jul 2024 05:51 CDT
4 min read

Renato Veiga, Riccardo Calafiori, Mykhailo Mudryk, Chelsea — © IMAGO

Chelsea are poised to complete a transfer for Renato Veiga of FC Basel in the days ahead.

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The Blues are set to pay in the region of €15 million for the versatile left-sided player, who is expected to feature primarily as a full-back for the Blues but can also play in central defence or a notch up in midfield.

He is a player who Chelsea have reportedly been following for some time as an alternative to Riccardo Calafiori, who they followed but never bid for. Instead, the Italy international is heading to Arsenal.

Interestingly, Veiga is the player that Basel bought to replace Calafiori when they sold him to Bologna last summer for €4m.

They are strikingly similar players, but while the Euro 2024 star will cost Arsenal €50m, Chelsea have moved swiftly to cut out the middleman and secure Veiga for just €15m - still upwards of €10m more than Bologna spent on his predecessor.

So is this the bargain deal it seems? Certainly, Chelsea have got their valuation of players wildly wrong before, with Mykhailo Mudryk’s €70m move from Shakhtar Donetsk in January 2023 looking a particularly poor piece of business.

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Current ETV

Renato Veiga

AM, DM (C)

Basel

Renato Veiga

AM, DM (C)

Basel

ETV Range

€1.4M - €2.4M

Is Veiga good value?

Chelsea are paying well over the odds for the 20-year-old Veiga. His Estimated Transfer Value (ETV) is just €1.9m, with his value having fallen steadily since he moved away from Sporting CP last summer.

Veiga’s peak valuation, which came after a loan stint with Augsburg in the Bundesliga, sits at just short of €10m.

This is a very different career trajectory to Calafiori, who was worth in the region of €2m when he moved to Bologna – a virtually identical price Chelsea are paying to Basel. The Italian’s value, though, was steadily on the rise.

Perhaps the crucial difference, though, is the way in which Basel used the players.

Veiga was used as a central midfielder or centre-back while in Switzerland. During his time with Augsburg, which is when he hit his peak valuation, he had been deployed as a left-back and had much success there. According to David Ornstein at The Athletic, this is how Chelsea plan to use him.

Going back to that spell in the Bundesliga, he was one of the top-performing wing-backs in the league for that campaign, albeit from a limited number of minutes. So not too much can be drawn into his performance level then, but it does indicate that Chelsea are poised to use Veiga in the optimal manner.

Interestingly, Chelsea’s fee of €15m possesses no add-on clauses. This means that they will actually be signing Veiga for cheaper than Bologna did for Calafiori. The Italian had a 50% sell on fee for anything above €4m. This means that the Serie A club will pay around another €23m for the 22-year-old if Arsenal’s €50m transfer fee is accurate, taking the total value of the deal to €27m.

In this context, Chelsea do appear to be getting a bargain for Veiga.