The 23 year old French defender had been linked with a move to former manager Jose Mourinho’s Manchester United after enduring a tough last season plagued by injuries and insufficient game time.
However, he has decided to stay put at The Bernabeu and fight for his place in the starting line up. The reason for this decision, he states, is the manager Zinedine Zidane.
Mourinho himself brought Varane to Real Madrid back in 2011 and the defender has played some good football as well as steadily improving himself throughout the five years he has been there. He is Real’s youngest foreigner to have ever scored a goal at 18 years and 152 days and also the second-youngest foreign player to score in an El Clasico. He has 151 appearances for Los Blancos and has 6 goals to his name.
However, last season Varane was vying for a place in the starting line up with the likes of Pepe and Sergio Ramos but was reduced mostly to watch from the substitute bench as Real Madrid enjoyed a fruitful campaign where they won the Champions League. A promising performance in Euro 2016 was expected, but a hamstring injury cut that short and he missed out on the tournament.
Jose Mourinho is a big fan of the young defender and wanted to bring him to the Premier League even during his managerial time at Chelsea. According to metro.co.uk, the player who has a contract with Los Blancos till 2020, has committed his immediate future to them.
Apparently, manager Zidane had a talk with him after he was handed the number 5 jersey, which was incidentally worn by the icon himself during his Madrid days, after which Varane was convinced that the right decision would be for him to stay.
According to goal.com, Varane told reporters that he wants to keep developing at Real under Zidane who had shown a lot of faith in him.
Varane certainly has it in him to better the likes of Pepe and Ramos and the best is yet to come out of him.
For Mourinho and United, it is a major blow, even though they have bolstered their defense with the signing of Eric Bailly. The indifferent form of Daley Blind is a cause for concern and Mourinho now has to look somewhere else for defensive reinforcement.
