It isn’t all that common for a player to be signed for a club record fee and yet ultimately be seen as something of a disappointment. It isn’t outrageous to suggest that that might well have been what happened with Álvaro Morata, however. That is shown in the fact that he was brought in by Chelsea for a fee of around £60 million, only to be sent out own loan just two years later. This was largely because of a lack of goals, yet he actually scored more for the Blues than at any of his previous clubs as a senior player. With huge amounts of silverware to his name, he will doubtless feel that that was a Chelsea problem, not a him one.
Who is Álvaro Morata?
Álvaro Borja Morata Martín was born on the 23rd of October 1992 in the Spanish capital of Madrid. The son of Susana Martín and Alfonso Morata, his father would later be heavily involved in any transfer negotiations alongside Juanma López, Morata’s agent. In the March of 2014 he decided to shave all of his hair off, saying, “Kids with cancer want to have my haircut but they couldn’t, so I gave myself theirs”. He was married to his Italian girlfriend, Alice Campello, for a little over seven years, having four children together. Two of them were twins and he changed his number at Chelsea from 9 to 29 to honour their July 29th birthdate.
Starting Out as a Player
Álvaro Morata’s playing career began as a youth player when he was signed up to the Academy of Atlético Madrid in 2005. He remained on their books for two years, moving to the youth system of Getafe in 2007 and remaining there for a year before he was snapped up by Real Madrid. He made his was through the youth system of Los Blancos, initially appearing for the Real Madrid C team whilst he was still a junior player. Having made his was up to enjoying a successful season with the Juvenil A, scoring 34 goals as he won two youth titles, he was promoted to the Real Madrid Castilla, which is the club’s reserve team.
In the summer of 2010 the Real Madrid manager at the time, José Mourinho, decided to take five players on the club’s pre-season tour of the United States of America, with Morata being one of them. This offered him the chance to gain some decent senior experience, but his debut for the first team didn’t come until the 12th of December when he replayed Ángel Di María in the 88th minute of a 3-1 win over Real Zaragoza in La Liga. Ten days later and he was used as a substitute in the Copa del Rey, but in the wake of Gonzalo Higuaín’s injury it was confirmed by Mourinho that he wasn’t ready to be his replacement.
Leaving Real then Returning
The first competitive goal that Morata scored for the Real Madrid first team came on the 11th of November 2012, netting just a minute after coming on in a 2-1 way win at Levante. His first start came against Rayo Vallecano on the 17th of February, with Morata scoring after just three minutes only to be taken off before the 30 minute mark as Raúl Albiol needed to replace Sergio Ramos, who had been sent off. He continued to get sporadic minutes for Los Blancos, eventually becoming a first team regular after Carlo Ancelotti had been brought in as manager. He warned to play more, however, so was sold in the summer of 2014.
Italian giants Juventus paid €20 million to sign him on a five-year deal, although Real Madrid retained the ability to buy him back in the future. His debut came on the 13th of September, but his got his first goal for his new club a fortnight later. His first season at the club was one of ups and downs, including a Champions League final defeat by Barcelona, but on the tenth of December he signed a contract extension with the Turin side that would keep him there until 2020. He rewarded them with a winning goal in the Coppa Italia final, but on the 21st of June 2016 it was confirmed that was to head back to Spain.
Catching Chelsea’s Eye
Real Madrid exercised the buy-back clause that had been inserted into Morata’s Juventus clause on the 21st June 2016, seeing him return to the Santiago Bernabéu for a fee of around €30 million. He started his first game upon his return to his former club as they defeated fellow Spanish side Sevilla in the 2016 UEFA Super Cup, whilst his first goal came in a 2-1 win over Celta towards the end of August. On the fifth of April 2017, Morata was the beneficiary of the rotation system used by the manager at the time, Zinedine Zidane. The got a hat-trick in a match against Leganés that kept Real at the top of La Liga.
Although he spent most of the season as Karim Benzema’s backup, Morata still ended the 2016-2017 campaign with 15 league goals, helping Real Madrid to win La Liga for the first time in half a decade. He also scored three goals across nine appearances in the UEFA Champions League, which Los Blancos defended with a second successive win. It was enough to mean that Chelsea began to keep tabs on him and eventually started negotiations with the Spanish giants for his signature. On the 19th of July 2017 it was confirmed by the Stamford Bridge club that a deal, reportedly worth £60 million, had been agreed.
Life at Chelsea
Having signed for Chelsea for a club record fee at the time of around £60 million, Álvaro Morata got his competitive debut when he came on in the 74th minute as the Blues lost the Community Shield to Arsenal. The game itself ended 1-1, resulting in a penalty shoot-out before Morata missed his spot-kick. That hardly endeared him to the Chelsea supporters, but he got his first assist for the Blues when he set up David Luiz in his first Premier League appearance, as well as getting his first goal. In spite of this, Chelsea lost 3-2 to Burnley at Stamford Bridge, with his goal proving to be little more than a consolation one for the Blues.
On the 23rd of September, Morata scored his first Chelsea hat-trick in a game against Stoke City that Chelsea won 4-0. A couple of months later and he came up against his former boss, scoring the only goal in 1-0 win over José Mourinho’s Manchester United. Another goal on Boxing Day meant that his tally in the league reached the ten goal mark, finding the net in a 2-0 win over Brighton & Hove Albion. A few weeks later and he was sent off for the first time in one of the quickest double-yellow card incidents in Premier League history, being booked for diving and then almost immediately for showing dissent to the referee.
Leaving Chelsea to Return to Spain
Having finished the season with 15 goals in all competitions, which his most of a senior season, Morata might well have been feeling quite pleased with himself. He scored his first goal of the 2018-2019 season in a 3-2 win over Arsenal at Stamford Bridge, then he got the winner in a single-goal game against MOL Vidi in the group stage of the UEFA Europa League on the fourth of October, scoring twice to help Chelsea defeat Crystal Palace a month later. Even so, the Chelsea manager wasn’t overly enamoured by what he was getting out of Morata, so a decision was made to send him back to Spain on loan for the rest of the season.
📝 | Agreement with @ChelseaFC over the transfer of @AlvaroMorata from July 1, 2020. The striker will play at our club on loan this season and the move will become permanent ahead of the 2020-2021 season
👉 https://t.co/dX4mI5Nxgw#AúpaAtleti pic.twitter.com/rpU8Tex0S3— Atlético de Madrid (@atletienglish) July 6, 2019
His move to his boyhood club of Atlético Madrid was agreed on the 27th of January 2019, heading there for 18-months. On the six of July, however, it was confirmed that the Spanish side had made the move permanent, remaining on loan until the first of July of the following year when the transfer would go through with a fee of £58 million. When he scored in the Champions League on the 22nd of October 2019, he became the first player to score for both Real Madrid and Atlético Madrid in the competition. On the 11th of March he scored an extra-time goal against Liverpool at Anfield to ensure a 4-2 aggregate win in the Champions League last 16.
To Italy, Back to Spain & then to Italy Again
On the 22nd of September 2020, Juventus agreed to sign Morata on a one-year loan deal with an option to buy for €45 million. Having paid €10 million to take on the loan, the Italian club also had the right to extend it by another year for a further €10 million. He scored numerous big goals for the club, including two in the group stage Champions League match against Dynamo Kyiv, as well as having three goals disallowed in a 2-0 loss to Barcelona at the same point in the tournament. Morata then scored the second goal in a 2-0 win over Napoli in the Supercoppa Italiana, resulting in his loan being extended until the end of the 2021-2022 campaign.
Morata scored nine goals in 35 appearances in Serie A that season, but Juve still decided not to activate their option to buy. As a result, Morata retuned to Atlético Madrid, scoring 13 times in La Liga but failing to score at all in Europe. He scored twice as Atlético achieved the club’s biggest ever away win of 7-0 in the history of La Liga. He scored 15 times in La Liga, coming second to Antoine Griezmann in terms of goals for Atlético. On the 19th of July, Morata signed a four-year contract with AC Milan to take him back to Serie A. The contract included a clause for another season if he scored 20 times or more in the 2024-2025 season.