"Passion for football" – Frenchman tells Aurélien Tchouaméni reasoning to leave Real Madrid for Manchester United
03/26/2025 11:44 AM
Real Madrid midfielder Aurélien Tchouaméni has a sideline away from playing the beautiful game, co-hosting a podcast called The Bridge Show.
This week the 25-year-old had a chat with Lassana Diarra and Raphaël Varane, with part of the show being about the retired defender’s decision to move to Manchester United in 2021.
Varane had been with Real Madrid since his 2011 move from Lens, and quite literally won the lot in that period. Manchester United had been keen at that point, but Varane chose to go to Los Blancos instead, a decision which can’t really be questioned.
Still only 31-years-of-age, yet having retired due to repeat problems with fitness, the Frenchman managed to win both the FA Cup and League Cup with the Red Devils, so tasted some success.
Tchouaméni wanted to know Varane’s reasoning for making the move to Old Trafford, and Marca quote the latter as saying: “It was actually a long process. 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.”
Maybe Raphaël Varane has planted a Manchester United seed in Aurélien Tchouaméni’s head…
The post “Passion for football” – Frenchman tells Aurélien Tchouaméni reasoning to leave Real Madrid for Manchester United appeared first on Sport Witness.
