Former Madrid and Manchester United defender Raphael Varne has explained that ‘everything is different’ for the centre-back in 2015 when he starts where he started 15 years ago. The Frenchman was at the top of the game for ten years, before injuries interrupted the last few years of his career, until his retirement this past summer.
Varane was just 18 when he joined Los Blancos from RC Lens. After a call from Zinedine Zidane, Varane was on the way to sign for Real Madrid, but did Aso talk to Jose Mourinho, who was then manager at the Bernabeu.
“Not on the phone, but before signing I went to Madrid and talked to him in person. I needed to know that he really wants me,” recounted the diary as. “Mourinho has a lot of charisma. I went and said, ‘I will kill myself with that man.’ “
Varane may have signed for Manchester United instead
However, it was not the only team interested in him. The World Cup winner also had a funny anecdote in his Sir Alex Fergusship on behalf of Manchester United, which he would eventually join ten years later.
“Not many, actually. Ferguson even saw me personally at home. He had a trip planned in Paris, and he couldn’t believe it. But it was hard to empathize.”
‘Everything is different’ for central defenders
Varane had more than enough years of experience on top of the game, and was part of Real Madrid’s Peat-Peat in Perrives’s Peat in the League Package. Over his career, Varrane felt that there was a paradigm shift in his position.
“Everything is different. When I started, there were no big, fast players. Now, their work was stronger and slower, and it protected them.
“When a striker explodes, you get in the way and you’re shocked by him, that kind of thing. Don’t let anybody get behind you. Look, the quality of the art is amazing.”
He went on to describe the central defender’s job as ‘choosing the least damaging option’.
“Toward the end of my career I didn’t work as hard because I was more determined. I studied for a long time, I took my time at the right time, and I didn’t apply because I was thinking about all the options.”
“As a center-back, sometimes you have to choose the lesser of two evils. If there are five evil solutions, you have to choose the right things to intervene.
Certainly in football, defenders are also expected to do much more than they were when they came from. That much has been shown by the signing of Dean Huijsen at Real Madrid, who stands out for his technical ability as well as his defensive mechanics.