{"id":571118,"date":"2020-11-03T08:49:50","date_gmt":"2020-11-03T13:49:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=571118"},"modified":"2020-11-03T08:49:50","modified_gmt":"2020-11-03T13:49:50","slug":"geoffrey-kondogbia-completes-atletico-madrid-move-as-thomas-partey-replacement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2020\/11\/03\/geoffrey-kondogbia-completes-atletico-madrid-move-as-thomas-partey-replacement\/","title":{"rendered":"Geoffrey Kondogbia Completes Atletico Madrid Move as Thomas Partey Replacement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/cce181df\/Geoffrey-Kondogbia\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Geoffrey Kondogbia<\/a> has completed his transfer from Valencia to La Liga rivals Atletico Madrid. The midfielder has signed a four-year deal for an undisclosed fee.<\/p>\n<h2>Kondogbia Completes Atletico Madrid Move<\/h2>\n<p>\ud83d\udd34\u26aa <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/WelcomeKondogbia?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#WelcomeKondogbia<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2705 Geoffrey Kondogbia passed his medical at <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ClinicaNavarra?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@ClinicaNavarra<\/a> before signing his contract as a new Red &amp; White player \ud83d\udcaa\ud83c\udffc<\/p>\n<p>\ud83c\udfe7 <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/A%C3%BApaAtleti?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#A\u00fapaAtleti<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/kTsOwEXx88\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/kTsOwEXx88<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Atl\u00e9tico de Madrid (@atletienglish) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/atletienglish\/status\/1323590544057053185?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">November 3, 2020<\/a><\/p>\n<h3>Thomas Partey Replacement<\/h3>\n<p>Kondogbia&#8217;s move comes despite the transfer window being closed. However, under La Liga rules, clubs are allowed an extra 30 days to replace a player who&#8217;s release clause was paid.<\/p>\n<p>That was the case with <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/529f49ab\/Thomas-Partey\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Thomas Partey<\/a>, who <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2020\/10\/05\/arsenal-complete-thomas-partey-signing-from-atletico-madrid\/\" target=\"_self\">signed for Arsenal last month<\/a> after the North London club paid his reported release clause of \u00a345million.<\/p>\n<p>Both Kondogbia and Partey are seen as combative midfield players. Kondogbia&#8217;s arrival at Atletico Madrid is, therefore, a like-for-like replacement in terms of personnel.<\/p>\n<p>Interestingly, Arsenal have been linked with Kondogbia as far back as 2015. Former Gunners manager Arsene Wenger was <a href=\"https:\/\/talksport.com\/football\/280800\/expert-view-arsene-wenger-likes-geoffrey-kondogbia-arsenal-move-will-not-happen\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reportedly a fan of the midfielder.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>It will be interesting to see if Arsenal signed the right midfield general.<\/p>\n<h3>Geoffrey Kondogbia Boosts Atletico Hopes of First League Title Since 2014<\/h3>\n<p>Kondogbia had previously represented France in five international friendlies, before <a href=\"https:\/\/en.as.com\/en\/2018\/09\/06\/football\/1536260412_981733.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">deciding to represent the Central African Republic<\/a> in 2018.<\/p>\n<p>He played 104 times for Valencia in all competitions during his three years at the club. He scored seven goals and recorded six assists in that time.<\/p>\n<p>Kondogbia&#8217;s arrival will bolster an Atletico squad which has the best chance of winning La Liga in recent years.<\/p>\n<p>The duopoly of Barcelona and Real Madrid are yet to fully convince this season. Barcelona are 12th in the table, having only won once in their past five league matches.<\/p>\n<p>Real Madrid are faring better &#8211; they are currently in 2nd, although their form has been patchy in the Champions League.<\/p>\n<p>Atletico are currently 4th but would go top if they win both of their games in hand.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<br \/>\n<a id=\"gG9Xg2rAS3NU1y_G-s6tvw\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/1278702578\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'gG9Xg2rAS3NU1y_G-s6tvw',sig:'DT3lWNWpMDvVHq4dIWulQJ4GZ7B8ZEesC20xOXo1xIU=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1278702578',caption: true ,tld:'co.uk',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Geoffrey Kondogbia has completed his transfer from Valencia to La Liga rivals Atletico Madrid. The midfielder has signed a four-year deal for an undisclosed fee. Kondogbia Completes Atletico Madrid Move \ud83d\udd34\u26aa #WelcomeKondogbia \u2705 Geoffrey Kondogbia passed his medical at @ClinicaNavarra before signing his contract as a new Red &amp; White player \ud83d\udcaa\ud83c\udffc \ud83c\udfe7 #A\u00fapaAtleti pic.twitter.com\/kTsOwEXx88 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3590,"featured_media":571129,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,6],"tags":[4942,210,339,6960,3276,136],"class_list":["post-571118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-la-liga","tag-2019-20-la-liga","tag-atletico-madrid","tag-diego-simeone","tag-geoffrey-kondogbia","tag-thomas-partey","tag-world-football"],"modified_by":"Tom Cunningham, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3590"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=571118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/571129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=571118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=571118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=571118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}