With 28 goals in all competitions this season, Barcelona team of Laliga, who is driven along Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League and with a Copa del Rey final to look forward, Raphinha looks at a Treble -and is the favorite for the Ballon D'Or.
His goal and two assists against Dortmund in the first stage of that quarterfinals brought Raphinha to 19 target contributions in the competition in this campaign – corresponding Lionel's Messi best effort. It is an amazing transformation for the 28-year-old Brazilian.
After two relatively overwhelming seasons, he was associated with a move to Saudi Arabia. But something has been clicked. With Robert Lewandowski who creates space and Lamine Yamal overlooks him, Raphinha has been the willing runner and found joy of the left.
His flowering of Barcelona has been one of the stories of the season, all the more remarkable in this era of early ripe talents that appear on stage, apparently fully formed. View that list of Ballon d'Or candidates and most others were teen sensations.
Raphinha's own route to the top has been less linear. For example, consider that it was only three years ago that he was there to celebrate with the Leeds supporters in the end in Brentford, after he helped the club to escape relegation under Jesse Marsch.
The story of how he became a Premier League player is in itself Serendipitous. In 2020, Marcelo Bielsa, the then Leeds -Baas, was not even Raphinha when he was shown the video of a game between Nice and Rennes. He was looking for a new left back.
“That was a bit of a problem position for us,” Andres Clavijo tells Sky Sports. You may remember your Clavijo as the translator of Bielsa, but in reality his role was much broader than that, working as an analyst for the coach, with a certain specialty in French football.
“I made a video of Nice versus Rennes and Raphinha tore the beautiful left back against fragments. Marcelo saw it and said to me,” Who is this player? ” I said, “That's Raphinha, he has had an incredible season and helps Rennes to qualify for the Champions League.”
“I remember that I said to him:” He is probably far out of our budget because I am sure they will not let him go for slightly less than £ 30 million after the season he had. “They had just bought him to wear the season earlier for around £ 20 million.
'But I think Marcelo contacted then [director of football] Victor [Orta]. Victor put out his hand to Rennes and they said it was impossible, but it came about in the last few days of the window. It was strange that we left that. We couldn't believe our happiness. “
Raphinha was a revelation at Leeds and quickly adapts to life in the Premier League – and, crucial, life under Bielsa. “He is by far the best player I have pleasure to be in the neighborhood. He is crazy, but his work ethics is incredible,” says Clavijo.
“From the first day he was just incredible in training. If you talk to one of the boys who were there at the time, they will tell you how good he was in training. He was just at a different level for everyone. But the working speed is really what everyone surprised.
“His physical figures were not of this world. It was just incredible.” Indeed, during his debut season as a Premier League player, his only full season under Bielsa, Raphinha made 715 Sprints, the most by every winger that year, despite missing eight games.
Factor in all positions and Raphinha made that season more than 10 percent more sprints than any other Premier League -ReguliE, one that was played in the stadium without supporters. His motivation was intrinsic, albeit with a little encouragement from his coach.
“That is why he went so well with the way Marcelo wanted to play. If you look through the teams of Marcelo, if you don't work, then you don't really play. He had that work percentage in abundance and also the possibility that no other player had in that team.”
Clavijo describes it as “absolutely strange” to think that he was working with a future balloon d'Or candidate at newly promoted Leeds, but perhaps he should have checked in with Diogo Fernandes, the coach at Avai, the Brazilian club where Raphinha started.
Speaking with Fernandes when Raphinha was still at Leeds, his prediction for the rise of the player now seems prophetic. “I always told people that he was the best I had worked with. I said he would play for Barcelona or one of the top clubs in Europe.”
Fernandes tells some big stories about the young Raphinha. He would often catch the ball during the training when a pass was persuaded to him. “To prevent it from walking away too far and had to get it because our training ground was very open.”
No problem until he repeated it during a match against Inter in the Copa Rio Grande do Sul. Raphinha had already been booked. “He automatically stuck out with his hand to stop. Of course they gave him a second yellow card and he was sent away.”
Then there was the time that he was furious because a bookable attack was not committed by him, but by a teammate and began to proton with the referee. A bit uncomfortable when his teammate was already on a yellow card and he wasn't.
That can simply resonate with supporters of Barcelona who witnessed Raphinha Lunge on the Ball on the line to a goal from Pau Cubarsi in that 4-0 win over Borussia Dortmund in the first stage of the Champions League quartefinal. Let us call it ruthless singliness.
“He was extremely competitive, even explosive. He always wanted to be the best. He was destined to achieve the highest echelons of football because of his qualities, his dribbling power, his intelligence and his finish. He was almost complete.”
Almost complete, says Fernandes. But when Raphinha arrived in Europe, it was not to become a member of one of the super clubs of the continent. He moved to Vitoria Guimaraes in Portugal and was in the B team coached by Vitor Campelos – with much left to learn.
“He arrived from Brazil and he played his own way,” Campelos tells Sky Sports. “Football is different there, not so tactically developed. We started to show him where he should be as a winger.” A lot of work has been submitted, but Raphinha would like to improve throughout Wilde.
“He always wanted to learn more. He would always ask me: 'What do you think of this? Okay, so if the ball is there, where should I be now? 'I was a bit stubborn with him about the positioning of the body and the positioning of the feet to receive the ball. “
In this context, the constant evolution of Raphinha as a player is a little less surprising. Collect talent with an unnoticed appetite and great things can happen. “A good thing he had was a great dedication to the team and the other players,” says Campelos.
“We saw that immediately when he started working with us. Those small details, even when we did some simple passing exercises in training, he always tried to do them in the maximum intensity, in the right way, because he is an employee, a professional.
“I remember that his father sometimes looked at training. We thought he wanted to be something in football. He wanted to be someone and wanted to reach a high level. So he had this in his head from the start. He wanted to play in big teams to play for Brazil.”
That was a long way in 2016 when Raphinha was only a teenager, but for all the details that Campelos worked to use it, there was already an important aspect of his game. The finishing capacity that is now clear was then also a force.
“From the beginning his shooting accuracy was very strong when one with the goalkeeper. It was unusual. He might score nine out of 10.” Help-like, this season, in LaLiga, Raphinha has had more than twice as much one-on-one as someone else.
If Campelos has tightened the talent, Pedro Martins unleashed it. He was the head coach who gave Raphinha his senior debut in European club football with Vitoria. “When he was in the second team, he started our preseason and I said,” You will stay with me. “
Speaking with Martins about his former player, it is clear that he did not want to suppress him too much. “Raphinha was different. These kinds of players, they change the game completely because they do things differently. Sometimes it can create chaos in the game.”
The experienced Portuguese coach continued: “His game, it will always be anarchical, but you need that piece of anarchy in a team. This kind of fire that you can't extinguish. It's a better one to play a little more for the team, but we can't get this out of them.
“His dedication was great. He fought to win balls, not just waiting, really solidarity with the other players. He has a big heart. My question was whether he would improve and develop his play for the team whether this anarchist player would remain.”
Martins speaks about “Certainly that we can sell him to one of the big Portuguese clubs” and that is what happened, Raphinha continued after two seasons in the startline-up of Vitoria. From there came the move to Rennes, an important step for him.
“I think France was very good for his game understanding. And now in Barcelona, you have to adapt to their philosophy, because if you don't adapt, you can't play there. So he has adjusted and I understand that he is more mature and plays for the team.”
Raphinha's figures for Barcelona this season emphasize this spectacularly. Yes, he took Cubarsi's goal against Dortmund, but although he is the top scorer of the Champions League, he is actually higher for assists this season than goals in Laliga.
Indeed, Raphinha has caused more opportunities by open play in the competition than anyone else. Decisive in possession but determined without, he has become an all -round player in Barcelona. “He is now 28, so he is more mature,” Campelos notes.
What is fascinating is that it took until the third season in the club before he really flourished. Not everyone gets so much time in Barcelona. The reason for his transformation is partly due to a change in role that plays to Raphinha's strengths.
“He can play in one of the [forward] Positions, “says Campelos. But Raphinha was limited to the right for a large part of his first two years in Catalonia.
From the left he can both score and create. The result is that, like his striker, he has already scored so many goals in LaLiga this season as his first two seasons together. Clavijo, the man whose video helped him to put on this path, is not shocked.
“The fact that he plays on the left, it's not a real surprise. He didn't do it too much with Leeds, but when he was in Rennes, he played on that side quite often. Even in training at Leeds you could just see that he was so good, he could absolutely play everywhere.”
Clavogo adds: “I have no doubt that he would be fine. The move was clearly a very big step with the expectation and pressure. But I knew that as soon as he started as soon as he settled and relaxed himself, he would turn out to be a very, cunning signature.”
Martins is now talking about his pride in Raphinha, while Campelos has fun in the potential that is being realized. “He is a hard worker, so I thought he could reach a high level, but I never thought he could be the captain of Barcelona,” says his old coach.
In fact, Raphinha is one of the five captains in Barca, part of the club's leadership group, not necessarily the bracelet, but Lewandowski, for example, is not until the five. It is another reason for its growth this season.
Growth that could still culminate in the Ballon d'Or.
Comments