Why Chelsea fans should be incredibly excited about Dario Essugo & Geovany Quenda | OneFootball

Chelsea mission to sign every top youngster on the planet ramped up earlier this month with the shock acquisitions of Sporting CP duo Dario Essugo and Geovany Quenda.

The Blues have parted with a combined £62.3m to sign the talented pair. 20-year-old midfielder Essugo will move to Stamford Bridge this summer, while 17-year-old winger Quenda will head over to England in 2026.

Here, 90min takes a closer look at both players, what makes them special and why Chelsea fans should be oh so excited by their imminent arrivals.

Essugo is on loan with Las Palmas / Fran Santiago/GettyImages

Midfielder Essugo is born-and-bred Sporting. Growing up in Lisbon and joining the club at nine years old, and his talent was evident almost immediately. He was a regular fixture in the academy and quickly rose through the ranks.

Just six days after his 16th birthday and still yet to play for Sporting's reserves, Essugo was handed his senior debut. He became the youngest player in the club's history in March 2021 and, after the final whistle, broke down in tears on the pitch after processing the event which had just changed his career.

"Nothing has changed in me," he told Jornal Sporting after his debut. "What I have to do is work harder, and harder, and harder to stay there. The hardest part is not getting there, but staying there. That's what I'm going to work for. What happened in the past is in the past. Now we have to look towards new horizons and goals."

Primarily a defensive midfielder who has been compared to Moises Caicedo for his ability to recover possession, Essugo describes himself as a "player who likes to play the ball out from the back and drive it forward." You'll see him crunch into a tackle, drive 40 yards and slot through a smart pass all in the blink of an eye.

Like Quenda, Essugo has impressed through his maturity. He opted to join Las Palmas on loan last summer and openly admitted his excitement at seeing his weaknesses exploited by a new style of football. He wants to learn through experience and has done exactly that during the 2024/25 season.

However, what has long set him apart from the rest is his excellent positional awareness. Essugo is not just a cog in a machine, but rather he takes pride in playing an integral role in his side's setup, and this should aid his transition to life at Chelsea. Enzo Maresca demands a lot of tactical intelligence from his players and Essugo has shown he has it in abundance.

Essugo can initially be expected to offer some cover for Caicedo, but that is a reserve role in name only. Chelsea have nobody capable of replicating the Ecuadorian's defensive talents and look far weaker when Caicedo is tiring or unavailable, so there should be regular minutes to keep both players fresh and ensure Chelsea's defensive levels never drop.

Geovany Quenda

Hopes are incredibly high for Quenda / Eurasia Sport Images/GettyImages

Born in Guinea-Bissau in 2007, Quenda moved over to Portugal as a youngster and wasted little time in showing his potential. Those familiar with his emergence all recount a story of an unknown child turning up to a game in jeans and running circles around his opponents. Lisbon outfit Damaiense snapped him up without hesitation.

Both Benfica and Sporting soon made contact and it was the former who sealed Quenda's signature initially. The young winger dazzled in tournaments for two years and was due to extend his time with Benfica when the Portuguese side backed out of a promise to house a 13-year-old Quenda at their academy. The door was opened for Sporting to snatch a prized asset from their fiercest rivals, and they took it.

Quenda is overflowing with natural talent. He brings everything you could possibly want from a winger - "He has a great relationship with the goal and is very good one vs one," youth coach Fabio Roque told Sky Sports - but that was never going to be enough to break through at Sporting under Ruben Amorim, who demands discipline and immense work rate from all his players.

His strong mentality saw Quenda rise to the challenge. The youngster recognised the gift he had with the ball at his feet, but accepted a weakness out of possession, and so he got to work rectifying the void in his game.

"One characteristic he didn't have before, but has now perfected, is defending," godfather Basaula Lemba, told zerozero. "Before, he only played from midfield forward, but now he can combine attack with defence. He came from an African country, where they only value the ball at their feet, so he had to get used to a slightly different system. More demanding."

Quenda values the ugly side of the game, perhaps to his detriment early in his career as his breakthrough came as a wing-back, rather than a traditional winger. Reports state Quenda wanted to return to his natural attacking position, helping Chelsea beat Manchester United to his signature.

Compared to Arsenal star Bukayo Saka for his do-it-all approach to dominating on the wing, Quenda has already made a major impact on senior football. He's Sporting's youngest goalscorer of all time - ahead of a certain Cristiano Ronaldo - a regular starter in the Champions League and has already been part of Portugal's senior squad.

Sporting fans were devastated to see Quenda commit his future elsewhere. He is widely hailed as one of the finest footballers of his age group, alongside soon-to-be teammate Estevao Willian, and Chelsea supporters are understandably drooling over the prospect of watching him realise his astronomical potential at Stamford Bridge.

The future is bright for Chelsea with both Quenda and Essugo in the ranks, but perhaps more importantly, the present also seems to be rather exciting.