RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec 25 — Brazilian international midfielder Oscar, who played for Chelsea, is returning to Sao Paulo, where he started his career, the club announced yesterday.

"Welcome, Oscar, what a great addition,” read text at the end of a video posted on the club’s social media accounts.

Oscar — whose full name is Oscar dos Santos Emboaba Junior, and who is aged 33 — became a free agent after spending eight seasons in China with Shanghai Port, where he arrived in 2017 after leaving Chelsea.

The attacking midfielder started his career at Sao Paulo and made his first-team debut in 2008.

Two years later, he transferred to another Brazilian club, Internacional de Porto Alegre, in a controversial move that sparked a long legal dispute.

An Olympic bronze medallist with Brazil’s U23 team at the London 2012 Games, Oscar later moved to England, playing for Chelsea, where he scored 38 goals in 203 matches.

In four-and-a-half years with the Blues, he won four trophies, including two Premier League titles (2014-2015 and 2016-2017), the Europa League (2013), and the English League Cup (2015).

Oscar scored 12 goals in 48 games for Brazil. The most famous was the only one Brazil scored in their 7-1 defeat to Germany in the semi-finals of the 2014 World Cup on home soil. — AFP