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At The Age Of 25, Raphael Varane's Career In Numbers Is Actually Silly

At The Age Of 25, Raphael Varane's Career In Numbers Is Actually Silly

Just wow.

Ryan Sidle

Ryan Sidle

As well as the blistering pace of Kylian Mbappe and the brilliance of Paul Pogba the hallmark of this France side has been the defence, helped by Raphael Varane. The centre back's career is already mad for a 25 year old.

Throughout the World Cup France haven't always dazzled up front. They scored two against Australia, one against Peru and none against Denmark in the group stages but their defence has remained solid.

Other than the crazy game against Argentina, in which they conceded three times, Didier Deschamps have only conceded once against Australia and even that was just a penalty following a moment of madness from Samuel Umtiti.

Some Belgium players were extremely salty following the semi-final and claimed that the French were too defensive, calling it 'anti football' and the like.

But that seems very unfair. Instead it's just that les bleus defence has just been ridiculously good with Umtiti and Raphael Varane in the middle holding most sides at bay with relative ease.

Varane is of course very used to be pressure finals having just played in the Champions League final two months ago and even that was far from his first big game:

Varane joined French side Lens aged 13 but only played one season for their senior team before being signed by Real Madrid for an absolute steal of €10 million, one of the best pieces of business in recent years.

Since then he's gone on to win two La Liga titles and four Champions League trophies, as well as several other cup competitions whilst playing 233 times for Los Blancos.

As a centre back he's still arguably five years from his peak and that's the same for the rest of the France defence of Samuel Umtiti, Lucas Hernandez and Benjamin Pavard.

Now he's a world champion. What a career.

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Topics: Football News, Football, World Cup, France, Real Madrid