Eduardo Camavinga: The next great French Wonderkid
Eduardo Camavinga is a French professional footballer who plays for French club Stade Rennais FC (or simply Rennes) as a Defensive Midfielder. Born in a refugee camp in Miconge, Angola to Congolese parents, Camavinga and his family moved to France when he was just 2 years old. As a 16-year-old in December 2018, he was awarded his first professional contract, becoming one of the youngest professional players in Rennes’ history. In April 2019, Camavinga became the youngest debutant for Rennes at 16 years and 4 months old. His professional debut came against Angers in a 3-3 draw.
In August 2019, the football world first took notice of Eduardo Camavinga’s talent when he gave a man of the match performance against Paris Saint Germain in a 2-1 win for Rennes. That PSG team contained the likes of Marco Verratti, Marquinhos, Thiago Silva, Kylian Mbappe and Edinson Cavani. Camavinga provided the winning assist, had a pass accuracy of 98% and made 3 tackles. Eduardo’s first goal for Rennes came against Olympique Lyonnais in December 2019 after he scored the only goal of the game in the 89th minute. In the 2019-20 Ligue 1 season, Eduardo Camavinga made a combined 5.6 tackles and interceptions per game. These statistics are taken from Whoscored.com. His performances are one of the reasons why Rennes finished 3rd in the table and will be playing in the 2020-21 UEFA Champions League season.
Eduardo Camavinga received his first call up to the French national team in August 2020 for the UEFA Nations League fixtures against Sweden and Croatia. He made his international debut against Croatia on 8 September 2020 after he came off the bench replacing N’Golo Kante.
According to the game Football Manager 2020, Camavinga is best suited for the role of Deep Lying Playmaker with a Defend Duty. The French midfielder is an epitome of the modern defensive midfielder who focuses on containing opposition attacks with the occasional forward run to contribute to the team’s offensive build up. His main duty as a player is to be involved in the initial stages of the attack and to organize them in the following ones. Camavinga is not only functional with the ball at his feet, but also with his deceptive movement. He creates lots of room for his teammates in several areas of the field by making dummy runs in order to keep the opposition defenders occupied. His speed allows him to take part in counter-attacks where he frequently finds himself near the touchlines as he is really good in positive transitions as well as negative transitions. Camavinga is quite cold-blooded for his age and he doesn’t lose his cool when he gets in tough situations with little to no clear winning outcome in his sight.
Eduardo Camavinga is just 17 years old and has already made the world take notice of his talent in the 2019-20 season. He has already been linked with a transfer away from Rennes though he is still at the club. It’s only a matter of time before he leaves Rennes for an elite club in Europe as he is an exciting prospect. If he shows a good attitude and avoids bad injuries, he is a future FIFPro World XI candidate.
