Raphael Varane credits Jose Mourinho and Zinedine Zidane for his career

The 26-year-old has been one of the unsung heroes for Los Blancos over the years.

One of the fan-favourites at Real Madrid, Raphael Varane spoke about his move to Santiago Bernabeu in 2011. The French defender joined Los Blancos for a reported €10m transfer fee from Lens at the age of 18 years. Jose Mourinho, the then manager of the 13-time UCL champions, pushed the deal in a bid to land a long term defensive prospect for the club. Varane credits Mourinho and Zinedine Zidane for his career. [KH_ADWORDS type="3" align="center"][/KH_ADWORDS]

He told  Onze Mondial, “Mourinho and Zidane deserve the credit there, I couldn’t do anything, they were the ones who saw things in me. They took a gamble, nobody in the club knew about me, nobody except for them. In the media, in the city, just nobody knew about me, not even the players. It was something like they were taking a gamble on the young player and let’s see if it pays off or not.”

Raphael Varane further revealed that he received a call from the club's consultant at the time of the move and he was none other than Zinedine Zidane.

“I was going to say I was careless, but I was just irresponsible. I received so many phone calls, I was very tired and it was a stressful time, it’s true that I didn’t realize what was going on at the time,” he explains while revealing that he didn’t pick up Zidane’s call because he was studying for his exams."

[KH_RELATED_NEWS title="Related News | ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW"][/KH_RELATED_NEWS] The defender further talked about the current Real Madrid season and how Karim Benzema is leading the team.

“He’s clearly at his peak, I see him so calm and at peace, he’s focused on football and physically he’s so strong right now. He embraced his role as the leader of the offense and he’s delivering. It doesn’t surprise me anymore, he’s being so consistent and not only about his numbers and goals, it’s also about what he brings to the table to help the team, and he’s doing that every three days.”

Raphael Varane finally spoke about Zidane and his system of playing football.

“I know his ideas as a coach so well and he knows what he can expect from me, he knows me very well. It’s going well, we’re starting to press the reset button so that we can find our groove individually but also as a team.”