Southampton's former Premier League mainstay Romeo Lavia responded to his Conference League medal-less night with a prestigious Club World Cup medal.
A week after Damion Downs and the United States suffered a come-from-behind Gold Cup defeat, it was time for the leftover grand event of the summer to conclude. The Club World Cup, where the Southampton fans had Manchester City and Chelsea as the only two Premier League teams to root for, though many of them must have wished for a non-English winner or even an underdog side to sneak in with the trophy.
Well, the results are out and the Blues have cemented their place as the world's finest team. Undoubtedly, that can't uplift Southampton's sporting ranking but can make the Saints give a standing ovation to €62m former starter Romeo Lavia.
Romeo Lavia stood tall on long-held Chelsea expectations
Since the closing week of May, Lavia's medal helplessness has drawn sympathy from Southampton fans. Thus, when Chelsea welcomed the Belgian into their starting eleven fold, there were huge hopes from him to make the month-long tournament count.
From the beginning, Lavia kept pulling the strings in the Chelsea midfield and though he had to miss out on a good portion of the knockouts, the 21-year-old did enough to warrant himself a glorious medal.
Not to forget, Lavia calmed down the Londoners' growing tensions of a failed buy with a bunch of tidy defensive work, whenever required in action. On top of that, the evening could have been much more merry if Lesley Ugochukwu was also on the Blues' United States flight.
Nonetheless, he must be patient to make the most of his future moments, one, which may see him jet off to La Liga and play in the third different top-flight in his young career.