Kepa Arrizabalaga Career - A thread

Kepa was born on October 3rd 1994 in the Basque region of Spain. He joined the Athletic Bilbao academy at the age of 10 in 2004. Athletic Bilbao is a club well known for only having ”Basque” players playing for them.

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He stayed in the academy until 2012. He then graduated from the academy and joined CD Basconia (the feeder club of Athletic Bilbao).

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Also in 2012, Kepa was one of the stars of the Spanish squad who won the 2012 UEFA European U19 Championship. He saved penalty shots from both Samuel Umtiti and Geoffrey Kondogbia against France in the semi-final which helped them through to the final.

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The season after in 2013, Kepa switched back to Athletic Bilbao. This time to the men’s team. In May 2013 he was named an unused substitute in a La Liga game against Getafe. Kepa trained with the first team at this time but only played games for the B-team.

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Kepa then suffered some injuries which saw him more in the gym than on the pitch. Athletic Bilbao decided to loan him out and Kepa went on loan to both Ponferradina and Real Valladolid. The loan spells turned out pretty good and Kepa improved massively.

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When he returned to Athletic Bilbao in 2016, he was the 3rd choice keeper. Injuries to the 1st choice keeper saw Kepa making his debut for the club on September 12th 2016. He performed so good in that game that he kept his place in the starting eleven for the whole season.

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Kepa kept nine clean sheets as Athletic Bilbao finished 7th in La Liga that season. Kepa made his debut for the spanish national team in a 5-0 win against Costa Rica on November 11th 2017. Kepa played 53 games for Athletic Bilbao.

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On August 8th the club informed that Kepa’s 80M euro (!) release clause had been activated. You know by who, Chelsea. Chelsea were desperate for a goalkeeper after the exit of Thibaut Courtois when he left for Real Madrid.

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There has been up and downs throughout his time at Chelsea. Kepa has been heavily criticized this season tho. But that’s not so hard to understand when you look at these stats. (Against a goalkeeper from the worst team in the league, Krul Norwich)

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After being left out of the starting lineup for many consecutive games, Kepa was back. Kepa was back for real, and he looked very good the 2 games he started just before the Corona virus pandemic keeping a big clean sheet against Everton in the 4-0 win.

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Many fans think we should sell him and some people think we should keep him. I’m not the man to make that decision, that’s Lamps. But it’s a real positive that he came back from his bad period with a bang. What do you think?

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End of thread.