The microwave effect of Eduardo Camavinga

Eduardo Camavinga fight for a ball with Bernardo Silva during Real Madrid-Manchester City.Manu Fernandez (AP)

When everyone was looking only at Kylian Mbappé, Eduardo Camavinga appeared.

Last summer, 24 hours before the closing of the transfer market, while Spain devoured the first season of the biggest soap opera of this time (literally) due to the maneuvers of Real Madrid to immediately attract the PSG star, the only one who reached the Bernabéu was the French midfielder, who had just come of age and who was also wanted by the Parisian team, an intimate enemy of the whites.

"His personality has really surprised me," Carlo Ancelotti reacted as soon as he met this teenager who had already landed in Valdebebas with a lot of personal history, having been born in a refugee camp in Angola -where his family had gone to flee from the war in the Congo - and having burned down his French home during his childhood.

After a happy start, winter had overcast it and it has been now, in this spring to the limit, when Camavinga has left real flashes.

The state of extreme need in which Madrid has moved in the Champions League has opened a path for him and the Frenchman has been deployed with his long and fiery legs to show the best of his repertoire (intensity and touch) and relieve his holes of youth.

Against PSG, Chelsea and City came out at a disadvantage as an emergency resource and ended up shoveling the Castellana bonfire.

Against Guardiola's team, moreover, he did so without handles, without the coat of Casemiro, Kroos or Modric, who were substituted in the final stretch.

He did not seem to care: he put the center in the kitchen of the tie, he walked the field with the ball at his foot in the making of Benzema's penalty,

and moved determinedly into the abyss.

"He is well above the expectations set for his first year," they admit at the club.

He has moved better in the precariousness of the team than starting from the start

In the precariousness of Madrid is where he has felt best, as a microwave element.

When it has started, however, it has usually cost more.

In the autumn, against Osasuna, Ancelotti abandoned his usual calm to stir on the wing in the face of the excessive vehemence of the Frenchman, who was already carrying a card and did not mind taking risks to try to steal balls in avoidable areas.

He did not take long to relieve him, just like a month ago in Pizjuán.

"Sometimes he makes a mistake by going too fast," Casemiro warned him in the fall.

He spent a few months in the shade, showing more his shortcomings (lack of trade) than his virtues, until in the last two months, in the Champions League gorge, he has seriously shaken his hair.

Still under construction, no one is clear about exactly what it will be like when the military is over

, whether midfielder or midfielder.

He has held both positions, both at Rennes and at Madrid, and because of his tenderness, the second may now be more comfortable for him, although his work environment has always pointed out that in the future he sees it more as he did. first.

A more delicate position, but where Madrid has more needs.

And in that learning he is.

“I have forced him to play pivot a bit because I think he can do it.

He has quality and energy ”, Ancelotti explained a few weeks ago who appreciates his jolt and at the same time fears his excessive momentum.

With the inevitable ups and downs of age, Camavinga is now the great project to oxygenate Casemiro, who has never had a double of guarantees beyond three temporary months of the

Marcos Llorente.

"Without complex"

“A surprising boy, without complexes, without fear of anything”, they define him within the walls of the sports city.

"Edu", for some veterans of the locker room, brought the whole family to Spain (he is the third of six brothers) and it did not take long for him to buy a large house on the outskirts of the capital for the whole clan.

"He is well above expectations for his first year," they admit at the club

Fifth in the ranking of midfielders at the Bernabéu, the ventilation that he has provided this spring has symbolized, together with the growth of Valverde, the movements that the white midfield is experiencing.

During the winter, there was no menu other than the classic: Casemiro-Kroos-Modric.

The three continue to retain the label of non-negotiable and Ancelotti warned that it will be difficult for them not to start on tough days, but it is no longer just them.

At least now, there are nuances.

The Uruguayan has been promoted to fixed on pick and shovel nights, and in situations of great need the Italian coach dispensed with some of them, or all of them.

In the Chelsea return he removed Kroos and Casemiro, and on Wednesday against City, all three.

Without them Madrid came back.

A rejuvenation that has also helped a devastating statistics in the Champions League:

A Champions frenzy who has a point of infatuation, and with Camavinga as the protagonist of a

with Rodrygo as the star character.

In September, the Whites began by beating Inter (0-1) with an action by both in minute 89, and against Manchester City they prolonged their particular madness with the two of them reviving a comatose team.

The 19 years of the Frenchman can already be seen.

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