Not many footballers have a career as storied as Raphael Varane.
The centre-back won numerous Champions League and LaLiga title, as well as the World Cup in 2018 and will go down as one of the greatest of his generation.
In 2021 he moved to Manchester United after a decade at Real Madrid, a move that raised eyebrows at the time, but Varane has now explained what drove him to make the switch from Madrid to Manchester.
"Manchester is where you feel the passion for football"
"It was actually a long process," he told The Bridge Show, a show co-hosted by current Real Madrid and French footballer Aurelien Tchouameni.
'It's not like you wake up in the morning and say I want to leave. In 2018, I won everything; in fact, we celebrated our fourth Champions League title quickly. It was like a normal thing, the next step is to win the Champions League and think about the next one."
"Then I won the World Cup and I said to myself, I've done it all. There came a point in my life where I restructured myself, reviewed some things regarding my career management, and said to myself, I need to keep feeling emotions, I need something different."
"Madrid is indescribable, it's exceptional, but I've already experienced it . And I said to myself, I want to experience something else.
"For me, England, and Manchester in particular, is where you feel the passion for football, you feel it, you live it every day. Now that some time has passed, I have no regrets because it was an incredible experience."
Varane career at Manchester United unfortunately coincided with one of the clubs worst periods in recent history, where they qualified for the Champions League just once as well as achieving the clubs worst ever points tally, 58 in the 2021/22 season
Casemiro followed Varane to Manchester a year later and suggested his move was based on the stature of the club rather, telling the club's website in 2022: "Without a doubt it was down to the great stature of Manchester, because it’s a massive club with a great history.
"For sure that was the big attraction for coming here. I think that the great standing this club has in the game and its great history are definitely the most important reasons to be here. It’s also a fresh set of goals in a brand new league for me. So that presents a really big and exciting challenge for me and I’m working really hard to achieve them alongside my teammates.”
