Earlier this month we showed you this picture of new signing Lucas Piazon in training at Cobham. That one had caught many of us by surprise, as Piazon wasn't wasn't originally scheduled to be joining the club until January. Yesterday an article was brought to my attention that sheds a little light on the situation. Apparently at the time of the picture, Piazon was simply in town to sign his contract as his family finalized some details of their housing situation for their upcoming move (They'll be moving to London in January).

After signing his deal at the Cobham facility, young Lucas was asked by Villas-Boas if he'd like to train with the club. Piazon didn't have any shoes with him, but luckily the club manged to find him some floating around the building. 20 minutes later he was outside training. When asked about the experience, he replied with the following:

The training is very different., The field is very small and we work on quick one touch passing. Tuesday I trained with the first team, but the next morning I came in and trained with the reserves. We did more on the training grounds (that day) and I was comfortable with that group even though some players were a little older.

It's not surprising at all that the training here is quite different than what he does in the Sao Paulo youth ranks. Piazon seems to have taken to it though, because today he has boarded a plane bound for London where he'll take up residence in a hotel next to Cobham for the next four months. Piazon won't be eligible to play until his contract takes effect in January, but until then he'll be acclimating to London and training with the squad. Piazon already has a valid EU passport (Italy), so he does not need to deal with the process of getting a work permit in England. He's also got a solid grasp of the English language already, so that will be a big plus in the acclimation process.

For those of you unfamiliar with Piazon, we profiled him shortly after the news of his signing broke. Since then he's played in a number of different competitions for the Brazil youth ranks, and luckily for you we have video clips of nearly all of them (h/t to ChelseaDC for finding these). These videos are all the type that simply look at Piazon's touches, so they are useful at getting a good look at him. The first one is from a Brazil vs Germany match:





The next is Piazon vs Uruguay





Piazon vs Denmark





Piazon vs Ecuador





Piazon vs Australia





Piazon vs the Ivory Coast





If you've made it all the way down to the bottom, I hope you enjoyed the videos. When his contract officially begins Lucas will be eligible to play in our youth team, reserve team, or even for the first team. To play in the Champions League he'd have to be named to the squad come January at the expense of another established international, but he's probably far to raw to be considered there anyway. I'm really excited to see him arrive, and I'm sure there will be plenty of talk of his ability come Monday when he starts training with the club full time. Welcome to Chelsea Lucas, we're all excited to have you.