{"id":566866,"date":"2026-07-30T12:52:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T12:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/566866\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T12:52:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T12:52:11","slug":"chelsea-sign-crystal-palace-defender-maxence-lacroix-in-52m-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/566866\/","title":{"rendered":"Chelsea sign Crystal Palace defender Maxence Lacroix in \u00a352m deal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/chelsea\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Chelsea<\/a> have signed France&#8217;s World Cup defender Maxence Lacroix from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/crystal-palace\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Crystal Palace<\/a> for \u00a352m.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The 26-year-old, capped seven times by France, has penned a contract at Stamford Bridge until 2032. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Frenchman joined Palace from Bundesliga side Wolfsburg in 2024 for an initial \u00a315.5m and became a regular under Oliver Glasner last season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Lacroix made 55 appearances in all competitions as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/articles\/c4g5ydnpkqro\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Palace won the Uefa Conference League<\/a>, the club&#8217;s first major European trophy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The defender made three appearances for France during the 2026 World Cup, including against England in the third-place play-off, as Les Bleus finished fourth.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I think when I saw the players like Reece [James], like Morgan [Rogers], I&#8217;m just really happy to be also in a way in their story, you know? To write part of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/chelsea\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Chelsea<\/a> story with them,&#8221; Lacroix said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I&#8217;m really proud, really happy, to be part of this beautiful project and I just want to start playing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I&#8217;m really excited to see the guys, to see the manager, to start the season, because I feel like we have a story to write here, and I can be part of it, so it&#8217;s beautiful.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Lacroix is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/chelsea\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Chelsea<\/a>&#8216;s third signing of the summer transfer window, joining Morgan Rogers and Marco Palestra in moving to west London, as the club prepares for its first season under new boss Xabi Alonso.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Deals for winger Geovany Quenda and forward Emmanuel Emegha were agreed in 2025, with both players formally completing moves this month. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Blues are also currently <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/articles\/cx2d79ddvg4o\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">in talks to sign Brighton striker Danny Welbeck and Brentford midfielder Jordan Henderson.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chelsea have signed France&#8217;s World Cup defender Maxence Lacroix from Crystal Palace for \u00a352m. The 26-year-old, capped seven&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":566867,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":["post-566866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=566866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/566867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=566866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=566866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=566866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}