Rennes (AFP)
He was announced as one of the stars of the transfer window of the summer, but Eduardo Camavinga seems ready to return to Rennes to discover the Champions League and confirm his exceptional potential, with the Olympic Games or even the Euro in the sights. summer 2021.
Real Madrid had made it a priority according to the Spanish press? Are other big clubs in the running? "I will not repeat it, Eduardo is with us, he is one of the players who count in the workforce," Rennes president Nicolas Holveck said Monday. "He will be with us this season."
His trainer Julien Stéphan also kept repeating that the 17-year-old midfielder, revelation of last season in Ligue 1, under contract in Brittany until 2022, had every interest in staying in his training club for this year, often delicate, of confirmation.
The person, extremely rare in the media, had remained vague in an interview with the daily Ouest France in May: "It's nice that big clubs like those mentioned are interested in me, but conversely, I do not m "Not too interested in that. Especially since I am well in Rennes. We will see the rest ... I let my parents and my agents manage this".
He who had suffered this winter from the sequence of matches worked a lot in the off-season, most often at home among his brothers and sisters, but also during a stay a little bling-bling in a villa near 'Antibes where his agent Moussa Sissoko gathered hopes of French football for 10 days in June.
However, if he has followed all the Rennes preparation since the end of June, he was handicapped by a slight injury to the adductors and only played half-time this summer against Châteauroux in mid-July (3-0 victory) and another Saturday in Nice (3-2 defeat).
- "He understood everything" -
Each time, "Edu" has shown that he has not lost any of his confidence, his liveliness and his vision of the game. All the more so as the presence of the world champion Steven Nzonzi, quiet force as sentinel, him gives greater freedom of projection in attack.
"Him, he understood everything," said his teammate Benjamin Bourigeaud in May to AFP, also praising his humility in the locker room. "I'm really not surprised at his progress and he still has a lot of room because he's very young. I have no doubt that he will become a very great player."
He has also already changed dimension: he is one of the nine European stars on the advertising of the new Téléfoot channel and the health authorities have called on him for a clip reminding young people of the barrier gestures against the coronavirus.
Rennes supporters are eager to see him shine again on the Ligue 1 pitches, and now in the Champions League that the Breton club will discover in October. Camavinga is also eagerly awaited in Blue.
The young prodigy, born in Angola of Congolese parents and arrived in France with his family at the age of 2, was naturalized in November and summoned in the wake of the France Espoirs team.
The Olympic Games seemed promised to him this summer, but the postponement of the major meetings could allow him to take an additional step in time for Euro-2020, postponed to 2021.
In May, Ouest-France asked him if he dreamed of it: "It's not really a dream. In my mind, there is the World Cup, which is the biggest competition and for which I can really speak. dream. The Olympics or the Euro, it is rather a goal. And yes, I hope to be there. I will have to give me the means next season, to work hard. "
© 2020 AFP