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Chelsea striker Diego Costa has revealed what prompted him to reject Liverpool in the summer of 2013 and in turn sign for Chelsea next summer. The Brazil-born Spanish striker was a huge success for the Londoners last season and was an integral part of the Blues’ Premier League and Capital One Cup winning campaign.
In an extract from Costa’s biography titled “Diego Costa: The Art of War”, author Fran Guillen has said that Jose Mourinho played a major role in bringing the striker to Stamford Bridge, as reported by the London Evening Standard. It was known earlier that Costa had said that
Mourinho promised Costa he would be signed by Chelsea next summer
The excerpt from the book says, "Liverpool were quickest off the mark, offering €25m (£17m) for the Brazilian and triggering the release clause in his contract. However, Jose Mourinho, recently returned to Chelsea, had also identified Costa as a primary target, a Didier Drogba-style centre-forward around whom he could forge a new winning machine.”
"The Portuguese coach had watched Costa since he first arrived at Braga and had felt the force of the striker during his breakout season close-up as manager of Real Madrid. However, Mourinho had yet to persuade the owner of Chelsea, Roman Abramovich, to accelerate his rebuilding plans,” as written by Guillen in the book.
“In both acquiring new players and moving others on, the process would be gradual. For example, Benfica’s Nemanja Matic, another immediate target for the new manager, would have to wait until January 2014. If Costa could not be signed now, a strategy was needed to ensure he was delayed, and not diverted. Chelsea and Mourinho made their case to Costa and Atletico: turn down Liverpool now and we will sign you – for more money – in 12 months,” according to what was further written in Costa’s biography.
Jose Mourinho clearly wasn’t ready to let a striker of the calibre of Diego Costa go to a title rival, and was ready to do whatever it took to get him to Chelsea.
The very fact that he spoke to Costa and Atletico Madrid to convince them that Chelsea retained a strong interest in signing the marksman next season and that they would offer more money than Liverpool to clinch his signature spoke volumes of the extent he was ready to go to get a jump on his rivals.
As he had promised, Mourinho proceeded to sign Diego Costa from Atletico for £32 million last summer, and that signing would ultimately go on to prove pivotal to the Portuguese’s plans for his new-look Chelsea. Liverpool had earlier agreed to meet Costa’s £21m release clause, but then were rejected by the striker himself.
