David Villa signs for Atletico Madrid

Atletico Madrid have beaten Tottenham Spurs in the race to sign Barcelona's striker David Villa. Barca have agreed a deal with their rivals to sell the Spanish striker for a bargain £4.4million. Tottenham had been the favorites to sign Villa, but Atletico took advantage of the situation and landed the Spanish international. 

“FC Barcelona and Atletico de Madrid have reached an agreement for the transfer of the player David Villa to the Madrid club.” – club statement.

David VIlla who started his career at the club of Sporting Gijon, then moved to Zaragoza. After his success at Zaragoza, the team was in need of money, so a big transfer was made. Villa signed for Valencia. He had a wonderful time there scoring 108 goals in 166 appearances. That is a magnificent record. After  a fantastic 5 seasons with Valencia, Villa signed with Barcelona. The fee Barca paid was enormous, around €40m, for a four year contract. He had three seasons with Barca and made 119 appearances and scored 48 goals in the process.

On 8 July Barcelona announced that they have made an agreement for the transfer of David Villa to Atletico Madrid. Few days later, at the presentation of Villa as an Atletico player, many fans ran to the pitch and wanted to take a picture with him or hug him. The stadium's security team had to react and move the supporters away from their new star. He was given the number 9, previously worn by Radamel Falcao, who was loved and appreciated here, as David said:

"Falcao was loved here but hopefully I can make sure his absence isn't felt."

He also added some reasons for leaving Barca, in his words:

"I left Barca because I wasn't playing, not because the World Cup was on the horizon. I love this game and I wanted to play it."

He added that a move to the Premier League was planned but when Atletico made a move, he knew that his future is at the capital club. Also from a career point of view, they weren't lacking anything. They finished third in the league, won Copa Del Rey, and they will play in the Champions League next season. As I see this, all the sides are happy, because Atletico got their new goal threat for a very low price, David is happy because now he will have way more playing time and also the Atletico fans have their new hero, as they showed at the presentation of David Villa as a new Atletico number 9.

To sum up, David Villa is a great scorer with an amazing record of scoring 282 career goals for Sporting Gijon, Real Zaragoza, Valencia and Barcelona, added with 91 international games with Spain and scoring 56 goals. 

So, now Villa's challenge will be to replace, and to fill the boots of Radamel Falcao, who surprisingly left Atletico to join Monaco earlier in May. The club from Madrid are happy to have signed Villa as they added on twitter:

“The agreement and the signing of Villa as a new player at Atletico will be formalized after the player has taken a medical.”