Jorginho became the fourth player in the past decade to join Arsenal from Chelsea, following in the footsteps of club legends Petr Cech, David Luiz and Willian. The midfielder’s move to the Gunners came out of the blue and happened in a blink of an eye. However, it seems a smart move as Jorginho apparently has traded a mid-table, struggling Chelsea in west London for a title challenge with Arsenal in north London.
But he was quickly replaced at his former club by Enzo Fernandez for a British transfer record sum of £106m deal. Meanwhile, the Italian has signed a one-and-a-half-year deal at the Emirates which will keep him with the club until the end of the 23/24 season. Arsenal paid a £10m fixed fee and have agreed £2m in add-ons for the 31-year-old veteran. And anecdote concerning Jorginho and Arsenal’s Gabriel Martinelli has now resurfaced after the Chelsea player swapped blue shirt for a red one.
When Martinelli revealed on how Jorginho tried to convince him to play for Italy
Gabriel Martinelli is now a Brazil first-team regular having represented the South American nation 6 times and even playing at the World Cup in Qatar for them. However, it is true that the winger had the chance to play for Italy as he holds a dual citizenship of Brazil and Italy. While Gabriel’s mother hails from Brazil, bearing a ‘Silva’ surname, his father is João Martinelli, an Italian citizen.
But the 21-year-old was determined to play for his mother-land Brazil. Jorginho meanwhile took his shot to try and appeal to Gabriel’s Italian roots. According to the Arsenal attacker, although no official authority tried to reach out to him to persuade him to represent Italy at international level. Jorginho did candidly tried to ask him to join the European nation. Martinelli was quoted saying back last year:
“I had already put that [playing for Italy] aside. No-one spoke to me, only Jorginho once said to me, ‘I hope to see you in March’, something like that. But no-one [official] spoke to me, no. As I’ve said before, my dream was always to play for Brazil. I was just waiting for the opportunity to play for Brazil.”
While the 46-cap Italy veteran apparently did all he could, Martinelli was destined to play for Brazil. However, the youngster might be having a little sense of regret watching Italy lift the UEFA EUROs in 2021, and experience agony with Brazil in the 2022 FIFA World Cup getting knocked out by Croatia in the quarterfinals. But the grass would have seemed greener on the other side had he picked Italy as the European heavyweights have failed to qualify for back-to-back FIFA World Cup finals.
Nonetheless, Jorginho will now get to play alongside Martinelli at club level, if not the international stage. Moreover, Thomas Partey had little backup after the club announced earlier on Tuesday that Mohamed Elneny had hurt his knee “significantly”. Moises Caicedo was pursued in the last few days of the window, but Brighton was emphatic that he was not for sale. Jorginho’s contract at Stamford Bridge was about to expire in the summer, so the north Londoners turned to him.