Former Real Madrid defender Raphael Varane talked to AS and revealed that his disastrous performance against Manchester City in the 2020 UEFA Champions League could be explained by the fact that he had
suffered a concussion just a few days ahead of the match.
“In that match, I was playing with a concussion that I suffered weeks prior. In a previous game against Getafe, I had received a hard ball to the side of my head. And like many other times, I kept playing and had to be taken out of the game. The thing is that in the following days I felt extremely tired. It was impossible to recover. I thought maybe it was just a matter of sleeping more and that would be it. But the reality is that I was concussed and didn’t really know the symptoms. It lasted several weeks. Back then, they didn’t do tests. And I wasn’t well in terms of coordination or energy,” said Varane.
The former player also explained how he felt during the match against City.
“I couldn’t focus, it was impossible. I felt slow, lacking coordination. For example, the ball in the air and reading the trajectory, which is my strong point, impossible. That day, there was no way. I was slow with the ball and I was a player who always tried to pass it with one or two touches. As an athlete, it’s difficult to accept that something is happening to you. But well, I learned a lot from that. It’s not the only time it has happened to me in my career, and I know cases in other players. From there, I studied what a concussion is and worked with a team of experts in France,” he explained.
Varane also went into detail to reveal what happened when he injured his knee in 2013.
“I tore the external meniscus, which is the most complicated one. And during the surgery, they removed 72% of that meniscus. My body had a special adaptive capacity and protected my knee. I neither had full flexion nor full extension, and that protected the joint. But I had some consequences in terms of overall balance… I could write a book about this. I had to change the insoles every six months… It was at a level of detail that you can’t imagine. I had to change the way I played, the way I ran, everything,” he added.
Varane is still 32 years old but he announced his retirement from professional football back in September 2024 due to his physical problems and recurrent injuries.
