Julio Enciso returns to Ipswich for 30 million euros in record sale for a Paraguayan player

Barely six months ago, Julio Enciso packed his bags on loan, hoping to earn a spot in the team. Now he's back, this time through the front door, with a check that shatters every record for a Paraguayan player: 30 million euros. Ipswich Town announced him as their big signing for this Premier League season, and the message was clear from the start: this time he's here to stay.

The 22 year old winger signed a five year contract running through July 2031, arriving from Racing Strasbourg, the French club he had joined just over a year earlier. The fee is no accident or market whim: it makes Enciso the most expensive sale in history for a Paraguayan player, a figure that says a lot about how quickly he's risen in Europe.

To understand where he stands now, it helps to look back at the road he traveled. Enciso arrived at Ipswich on a six month loan in 2025, while still belonging to Brighton, and left a mark during that Championship stint that the club never forgot. Brighton then sold him to Strasbourg for around 9 million euros, a move designed as a stepping stone: the idea was to polish him in Ligue 1 before a bigger leap, with Chelsea waiting in the wings as the dream destination.

That plan changed course suddenly. Ipswich's offer rewrote the script, and Strasbourg ended up parting ways with one of its most valuable assets barely a season after signing him, pocketing a huge profit in the process.

Reunited with O'Neill

There's a key name behind this return: Gary O'Neill, who will manage Enciso at Ipswich and who already worked with him at Strasbourg last season. It was O'Neill himself who specifically requested the signing, convinced of the Paraguayan's potential and what he can bring to a team that has returned to the top flight of English football this year after promotion.

For Ipswich, the move makes sense: the club needs goals and unpredictability to survive in the Premier League, and Enciso already showed in his first spell there that he can make a difference even in tougher competitions. For the player, meanwhile, it means returning to a place he knows, backed by the confidence of a coach who has managed him before, and carrying the responsibility of justifying an investment that puts him among the most sought after Paraguayans in the European market.

The big question now is how he'll respond in the English top flight, where the pace and physical demands differ from Ligue 1 or the English second division. The Chelsea move is on hold for now, but nobody rules out this Ipswich chapter becoming, once again, a launching pad for something bigger.