Fernando Llorente: From Serie A to the Spanish second division

Eibar have officially announced the signing of Fernando Llorente, who has put pen to paper on a deal that will see him feature in LaLiga SmartBank until the end of the season.

The 36-year-old striker, who played for Napoli and Udinese in Serie A last season, underwent his medical at 11:00 CEST on Wednesday.

According to Onda Vasca, Llorente will train with the rest of his new teammates for the first time on Thursday. Eibar boss Gaizka Garitano had placed him on his radar last year, when he was in the Athletic Club dugout, but the club decided against signing the experienced striker.

Llorente left Napoli in the last January transfer window to join Udinese in search of playing time, as the then-Partenopei coach Gennaro Gattuso didn't have him in his plans.

"When I arrived at Napoli, [Carlo] Ancelotti signed me as the back-up striker," Llorente explained in an interview with MARCA last April.

"He was clear that [Arkadiusz] Milik was the first-choice striker. Luckily, in the first opportunities he gave me, I started scoring goals and I could have even earned myself a few more minutes as a starter.

"At that moment when I was scoring goals, he gave Milik a chance and from then on he continued to rely on me a lot, by sending me on in the second half, but I was not lucky enough to score.

"I remember having good chances that just went just wide and those were details that could have changed the situation. The thing that hurt me the most is when Ancelotti was fired and Gattuso came in."

Back to Spain

The last time Llorente played in Spain, he scored just one goal in 17 games for Sevilla back in 2015/16. Now, he returns to his native country to assist Eibar's efforts to return to LaLiga Santander after getting relegated from the top flight last season.

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