David Ornstein reports that Chelsea has reached an agreement to sign another Sporting Clube de Portugal player, defensive midfielder Dario Essugo within 24 hours..

The Athletic's resident renowned English transfer journalist David Ornstein, reported on Saturday that Chelsea and Sporting Clube de Portugal have reached an agreement on the transfer of the latter's young Portugal U21s international defensive midfielder Dario Essugo.

According to Ornstein's report, after finalizing the transfer of another of the club's player, winger wonderkid Geovany Quenda, on Friday, the club officials sent by Chelsea stayed in Lisbon to continue to negotiate with Sporting CP again on Essugo's transfer.

Similarly, after Essugo finished the game for Las Palmas, the club he is currently on-loan at, Chelsea actively negotiated amd reached an agreement with Essugo himself, his agent and Sporting CP on the transfer within a few hours on Friday evening local time.

It is reported that including Quenda, the Premier League giants will pay a total transfer fee of €71 million to Sporting CP to sign the two.

Essugo has agreed to sign on a  long-term 7-year deal with Chelsea which runs until the summer of 2032, with an option to extend for a further year. After the end of this season, when he returns to the club when his loan spell with Las Palmas ends, Essugo will officially join Chelsea.

Ornstein added that Chelsea had actually already been monitoring Essugo for a while before this. The club's scouts all believed that the young player's style of play was very similar to that of its undisputed first choice defensive midfielder Moises Caicedo. Therefore, after obtaining the consent of Sporting Director Paul Winstaley, the Blues took the opportunity to quickly launch and complete Essugo's transfer.

About Dario Essugo

Dario Essugo, who is only 20 years old, was born on March 14, 2005 in Odivelas, a suburb near Lisbon, the capital of Portugal. He is 1.78 meters tall and plays as a defensive midfielder. He has dual Portuguese and Angolan nationality.

Essugo joined the Sporting CP youth academy at the age of 9, and completed his Sporting Clube de Portugal first-team debut by coming on as a substitute in March 2021. He was only 16 years and 6 days old at the time, setting a record for the youngest player to make his first-team debut in the club's history.

One year later, he broke the record of Portuguese legendary player Luis Figo and became the youngest player to start for the first time in Sporting CP's history .

Over the years, the still young Essugo has won the Portuguese Primeira Liga twice with the club.

In January 2024, Essugo was loaned-out to Chaves.

In August of the same year, Essugo was loaned-out to Las Palmas.

So far this season, Essugo has played 17 times for the La Liga club in all competitions and scored 1 goal.