Why Chelsea won Diego Costa poker game with Atletico Madrid

At the Wanda Metropolitano on Wednesday night there will be one spectator whose seat comes with a major subsidy.

Diego Costa will surely be there somewhere, to see his employer of the last three years take on the one from both before and after that stint.

Wonder who he'll be rooting for?

Costa's post-deadline day move from Chelsea to Atletico ended a saga that, truth be told, had been rumbling on for almost all of 2017 thus far.

The three-way stand off – between Costa, Chelsea and Atletico – had been there since the forward came to the realisation that doubling or trebling his cash in China was no longer an option.

Since the implementation of a 100% signing tax on foreign footballing imports by the Chinese government, the Brazilian-cum-Spaniard has been openly touting his future towards Atletico.

The transfer ban that still hangs over his destination club was presented as the main stumbling block, but in reality it was a good old-fashioned game of poker.

Chelsea wanted what they thought their man was worth, and they were also insistent they would not pay a penny towards his wages between now and January – when he becomes of use to his new employers.

That they got both the price and the deal – a £57m fee and the equivalent of £3.5m saved on the wage bill – shows an impressive confidence in the hand they were playing.

And it reveals a lot about the red lines employed by the Blues in the way they conduct their transfer business.

Making a £25m profit on a player who had reached the end of the road at Chelsea, in a deal that observers expected to be subject to the usual market forces surrounding a distressed sale, takes hardball to a new level.

But Chelsea seemed confident from the off that the deal would happen, and that they wouldn't cave until their precise demands had been met.

And the reasoning behind those precise demands is now evident: £57m plus £3.5m equals the cost of Alvaro Morata – four years Costa's junior, and now scoring for fun, without any of the attendant baggage that dogged Costa's entire tenure with the club.

This is no attempt to revise the contribution Costa made at Stamford Bridge.

On his day, he was the best striker in Europe: combining brute force, technical ability, and a gamesmanship made for the Premier League, to win two titles under two different managers.

But that always came at a price: and the games affected by his indiscipline have to be counted in any such equation.

His ability also to fall out with not one but two bosses also reveals the true colours of a player often euphemistically referred to as 'a management challenge'.

Costa will certainly be missed: on the pitch and off it.

Last weekend's 0-0 draw with Arsenal was a clear case of a game that might have benefited from his street fighter qualities, over and above the far more cultured approach of Morata.

And, as an untameable force of nature, his image matched well with the way many fans like to see Chelsea: one club against the world.

But with Chelsea now playing the percentage game with signings, seeking players who can display true value for the team, Costa managed to rule himself out of contention at the club.

And that is the curious thing about the man: a rebel without a cause; but one who seemed to ultimately bottle it on the biggest stage, in the Premier League.

Both Costa's presence and absence will be acutely felt when Chelsea face Atletico on Wednesday night.

But from here on in he is very much Atletico's asset and problem, rather than Chelsea's.