Diego Costa returned to Chelsea on Saturday and did so in familiar fashion, picking up a yellow card after squaring up to Martin \u0160krtel during a charity friendly. The match ended with Liverpool claiming victory through a late Ryan Babel goal, but Costa\u2019s presence dominated the conversation.<\/p>\n
Several confrontations with \u0160krtel followed a physical challenge from Costa, with the clash culminating in a booking for a reaction that briefly overshadowed the charity context. The pair have a well-documented Premier League history: Costa received a three-match ban after being found guilty of stamping on \u0160krtel in 2015, and months later avoided punishment for what appeared to be a kick in \u0160krtel\u2019s direction.<\/p>\n
Their latest incident did not carry the same fallout. The two appeared to make up after the final whistle, an outcome Costa underlined with an Instagram post following the game.<\/p>\n
Those familiar with Costa\u2019s Chelsea career between 2014 and 2018 will recognise the temperament on display. The striker scored 59 goals in 120 appearances for the club, won two Premier League titles, and collected 32 yellow cards at Stamford Bridge without receiving a straight red.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course, this guy [Costa] is still the same, we saw it!\u201d former teammate Eden Hazard, who also featured in the game, reflected.<\/p>\n
Costa has not played competitively since being released by Gr\u00eamio in January this year. His time at the Brazilian club included a notable sending off during a fitness-building Under-20 friendly for an on-field fight in September 2024. He finished his spell at Gr\u00eamio with eight goals in 26 games.<\/p>\n
He has not formally retired, and whether he is actively seeking a new club remains unclear.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Diego Costa returned to Chelsea in a charity friendly, booked after clashes with Martin \u0160krtel. Sat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3732,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,175],"tags":[1138,1137],"class_list":["post-3733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-liverpool","tag-charity-match","tag-diego-costa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3733\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}