Chelsea's Portuguese international Deco plans to leave Stamford Bridge in the summer to go back to Brazil to help run a school he has founded.

The 32-year-old Brazil-born midfielder had previously said he will quit the international game after the World Cup.

Deco joined Chelsea from Barcelona in 2008 and told the Sunday Times he would be "nostalgic" when he left the club.

"In football you must achieve something when you are young, stay as long as you can, then it's over," he said.

Deco was born in the Brazilian city of Sao Bernardo do Campo and moved to Portugal at the age of 19, gaining Portuguese citizenship in 2002.

He said it had always been his intention to go back to Brazil to work with the poor, but he gave no hint about whether he planned to play for a Brazilian club once back there.

"It will be strange to leave Chelsea but with football this is always the way," he said.

"My friend Mike, a doctor in Brazil, was telling me that one day I will be an ex-footballer but he will never be an ex-doctor.

"In most jobs you do not become an ex-doctor or an ex-engineer or an ex-dentist, you build up your career slowly, getting better and better at what you do.

"With a footballer you can't do that."

BBC

fair play to him with his plans

BlueBeard is going to be delirious with joy when he hears this!

always tried my best to try and like Deco. He is undoubtedly a good player but not as well suited to the prem in my opnion and signed him a few years too late.

EDIT: I just realised i am member 5,000! Surely i win free tickets to the cup final or something :scarfcfc:

Edited April 25, 201016 yr by sd1516

choker!

always tried my best to try and like Deco. He is undoubtedly a good player but not as well suited to the prem in my opnion and signed him a few years too late.

EDIT: I just realised i am member 5,000! Surely i win free tickets to the cup final or something

Congratulations on that achievement! And I agree with you on Deco.

I was never his biggest fan before he came here, but come to Chelsea he did, and he has played his part in a few important wins in his 2 years here. Sadly his time here coincided with the Scolari chaos and he came to embody everything that was wrong with us at that time.

But I wish him well, and it sounds like he is a good guy off the field.

I spotted an interview like that in the Times this morning. Good luck to him, I guess. He wasn't always as good as he could have been, but I'd be a liar if I said I didn't have some fond memories of Deco in the blue shirt.

We got him way too late, but Scolari wanted a signing to mark his team and he was the perfect one available.

On his day Deco is probably one of the best midfielders on the planet, his passing is beyond belief sometimes but those days very rarely come now that age has caught up with him.

Wish him all the best and let's hope he finishes his Chelsea career on a high!

The thing about Deco, is he's had some excpetional games for us...but they've been few and far between.

He won't be missed, but I wish him the best for the future.

I just realised i am member 5,000! Surely i win free tickets to the cup final or something :P

SD, you've bested me by mere minutes,,,

Always rated Deco when he was at Barca, just came to Chelsea for his pension fund i'm afraid...

Came to us 2 years too late. At the time, no high flying clubs wanted him. He put up some good performance, no where near as bad as the media portrayed it. Everytime he came on as a sub, he got a rating of 4/10 automatically from the media, don't think that helped him one bit. In a number of games this year, I preferred him to play instead of the statue like Ballack.

Good time for him to pack anyway.

say what you will about him coming here for his pension or that he came here 2 years late. In some games he showed more heart than players that have been at chelsea for years. he worked hard for chelsea. all the best to him

Agree with above poster. Deco was the only one at the spuds game trying to calm players down when we were going tits up, he did the same at another game previous. Deco coming back into the system originally picked up our game after some bad results.

If the media are to be believed, he had a bit of a gob after Scolari got the boot, but did stay and see it through.

Maybe he is going at the right time and good he is going back to do what he wants to, but I respect him and think he done ok in a blue shirt!