“Brother, thank you for the past 2 years we’ve been together. It was truly a joy playing alongside you, I learned a lot. Wishing you the best, Rapha! is a great person 👏”
Lisandro Martinez said goodbye on IG to Raphael Varane ❤️
One of the best centre-back pairings Man United have had in many years!
There they were, side by side, as they had been all game – all season in fact – as the trophy was thrust into the air and a huge roar erupted around the red swathes of Wembley Stadium. Inseparable and increasingly impregnable, Raphael Varane and Lisandro Martinez are fast becoming this Manchester United side’s answer to Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic, a centre-half pairing par excellence and the rock upon which Erik ten Hag’s Old Trafford revolution is being built.
United were clinical in attack when they needed to be against Newcastle but this was a game when they had to focus, dig in and defend well, and Varane and Martinez took to that task with a relish that Ferdinand and Vidic – and before them Jaap Stam and Ronny Johnsen and, even further back, Steve Bruce and Gary Pallister – used to do.
They simply love defending and you can see it in the rigour, concentration and desire with which they take to the task. Celebrating tackles and blocks, bear-hugging team-mates for doing the ugly stuff well, constantly cajoling and communicating. When Aaron Wan-Bissaka snuffed out Allan Saint-Maximin midway through the second half, Varane was the first across to high-five the right-back. It is becoming contagious in a side unrecognisable from the soft-bellied, weak-willed mess of last season.
That old adage about strikers winning you games but centre-halves earning you titles still rings true and, in Varane and Martinez, Ten Hag has formidable foundations, and with midfield anchor Casemiro just ahead of them, an axis around which this team can grow.
“Before the game you asked me about the influence of Casemiro and Varane – they know how to win trophies – look at all the Champions League wins they had,” Ten Hag said. “But Martinez, I had him in Ajax, won trophies with him, and you need that personality and character to win in the end. You can count on him and rely on him and he showed that again today. That boundary together with Rapha is really strong. As a manager, you are composed and can have confidence they will sort it out.”