Why Alvaro Morata has what it takes to become one of the world's best at Chelsea after agreeing £78m deal

He has forged one of the finest careers in goalkeeping history from forensically studying how to stop strikers, so Gigi Buffon probably knows what makes them tick better than most, and he has so far summed up Alvaro Morata’s career better than most. The goalkeeper believes his former Juventus teammate can be one of the best in the world, “if only he could get over his mental hang-ups”.

These are probably sentiments expressed about the 24-year-old more than any other, and yet he has always had the best possible response, really from even before this type of thing was said. Morata has a supreme record of scoring in big games, going right back to Spain’s immensely successful underage teams.

“He just always had that cold blood,” his former international youth manager Gines Melendez tells The Independent, and Morata thereby has a fearsome record, too. Melendez saw the start of it, as he was under-17 manager when Morata’s two goals drove Spain to the semi-finals of the 2009 World Cup, and then under-19 manager when the Real Madrid forward’s six golden-boot-winning strikes also helped win the 2011 European Championships.

He just kept getting better as he got older, hitting four key goals to finish top scorer in Spain’s surge to the 2013 under-21 European Championships trophy too. The ultimate indication of his talent was in Juventus' run to the 2014-15 Champions League final, however, when he scored in both semi-final legs against Real Madrid and then an initial equaliser in the 3-1 final defeat to Barcelona.

This is what Chelsea are getting.

“You could see straight away he was a great player,” Melendez says of a local Madrid lad he knew from the age of 15.

This is what Antonio Conte first recognised in bringing him to Juventus in 2014 before the Italian manager left for his national team, and why he has turned to Morata again as he seeks a finisher who can also serve as a forward. Aside from that record, the Spanish international also has that physical strength in the air that the Italian wants, and is privately seen by one admirer who works with Barcelona as “brilliantly versatile enough to adapt to any style”.

Those words echo Max Allegri’s description of Morata from that season with Juventus in 2014-15, when he said the then 22-year-old “is one of the few players in the world who can play with any kind of forward”.

And yet, for all those compliments, all those qualities and all those goals, Morata’s career also carries a fair few questions - not least whether he is actually worth the £78m Chelsea have agreed to pay Real Madrid. Much of that comes from what happened after that 2014-15 season, given that he didn’t really kick on and, by 2016-17, found himself predominantly back on the bench for Real.

Some of that was down to the complications that came from the Spanish club wanting to enact their buy-back at the end of 2015-16, having sold Morata in 2014, given that it led to Juventus naturally looking to leverage the situation - and also having to look to a future without the players.

He was getting less game-time, scoring fewer goals, and just looking less like the top striker he should have been growing into, but some of that was also down to the kind of self-doubt that Buffon so discussed.

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Morata has discussed it himself. The striker has admitted that a relationship break-up at the start of 2015-16 was a huge factor, triggering a self-perpetuating cycle where missed chances would then cause even more of a drop in form. This is what the “father figure” in 39-year-old Buffon looked to talk him through, looked to get him to tackle.

Morata has always been very healthily willing to address that side of sport, however, and part of it comes from an evident thoughtfulness and grounded nature. This is after all a young lad who was held back from going to Atletico Madrid’s youth academy when a child, because his school results weren’t good enough, and his father insisted he first improve them.

Morata wasn’t, then, the sort of modern academy graduate who has rarely had the word “no” said to them. He eventually went to Atletico as a 12-year-old, joining the club of his grandfather, even though he himself idolised Real legend Raul Gonzalez and even though his own game was already said to greatly resemble Real's Fernando Morientes’.

Morata was already being described as a “goal machine” at that point, as he hammered in strikes for Atletico's youth sides. He was never seen as arrogant, however, and usually just liked by teammates for a generous nature. Morata was signed up by Getafe in 2007, before finally ending up at Real a year later, where he worked for a certain Jose Mourinho for the first time in 2010. Manchester United were deep in talks to sign him and reunite the pair, only for the Old Trafford club to pull the club because of the £78m asking price and turn to Romelu Lukaku instead.

That was why Mourinho was so willing to work with him and remains a fan, but Real's refusal to budge on their asking price saw United belatedly turn to Lukaku. For his part, Morata had been equally willing to work with both Mourinho and Conte, with the player greatly valuing the trust the latter showed in him back in 2014. Now he will finally get to directly repay that trust.

At 24, Morata is at the age where he is ready for a big role. His 2014-15 season at Juventus showed what he is capable of when given that, even if the idiosyncratic politics of Real Madrid ensured he was never really going to be given it there. That does leave the question over why he should be good enough for Chelsea if he isn’t quite good enough to be a starter at the Bernabeu, but that’s a bit simplistic.

Morata has a range of attributes, from his dribbling to his finishing to his heading, that greatly suits Conte. It’s why he agrees with Buffon, that he can yet be one of the best world. He’s just got to be in the right set-up. He already has the right big-game record.