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Raphael Varane. This kid
needs to retire in this club, Real Madrid's
management would be a failure otherwise. Mourinho trusted him and the 19-year
old defender realized he had to stop Lionel Messi and FC Barcelona. He
succeeded.

Xabi Alonso's defensive
efforts helped him, and it's true that Arbeloa and Essien played a fairly
decent game as well, but he had to bare with a subpar performance from Ricardo
Carvalho, his partner in the defensive line. He even saved a terrible mistake
from the veteran Portuguese when the ball was ready to cross the goal line in
what would have been the first goal for Barcelona
even before the first half had concluded. It's frankly hard to believe Varane's
performance. If this is his true level, he will be the world's greatest
defender.

It was Varane the man who
kept Messi out of the game, but the French player also equalized with a
brilliant header in Madrid’s worst moment and
allowed Real Madrid
to walk away with a positive result considering suspensions and injuries.

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maybe until now saf is wondering why he didn capture this guy 

Thanks to Zidane for bringing him to Madrid when he was just 17.

Glad to have you back, naman! Where have you been? =)

Yay YOUR FINALLY BACK!!! :)

and they say nastasic is the next great defender... Nah, this kid is!!

Welcome back, naman.

Dude.. you had come now... I was just about to become a mod!!

Just joking, nice to have you back man.

@all: thanks

@golden : a bit busy .... finally got time !

@puppetmaster : didn't knew that he was trying to.

I think he can be a better defender than Ramos and Pepe in the future because he kept his head cool in such a tense match and rarely committed  a mistake. Pepe and Ramos are excellent but I am sure that they would have committed numerous fouls on Barca players by losing temper .

actually saf main target 2 years ago is varane but he failed signing the guy so he just spend the money to phil jones

imagine he and pepe guarding messi lol

haha ....  He made Carvalho look like a school boy defender.

I believe he will replace Pepe in a year or two OR Arbeloa.

1.   Ramos | Pepe | Varane | Marcelo

OR

1.   Arbeloa | Ramos | Varane | Marcelo

None of the vids work for me...

first vid : not available in England

sencond vid: copyrighted

@naman93: I think the sooner Real can do without Pepe, the better. Choice 2 is the clear winner, for me. ;)

@ramaboy : here you go !

@Lodatz,

With regards to violence, I agree. Given the football level of Pepe compared to Arbeloa, I completely disagree. Pepe is miles ahead of Arbeloa in terms of defending qualities. It's not demanding to notice that Arbeloa is the clear weak spot of Real Madrid if there is one.

In addition, I believe Pepe has truly learned from his horrible previous actions. He's showing a very good temper during both decisive and less important football matches; on a current basis, a much better temper than, say, Ramos. I'd assert that to ditch the attributes of Pepe is something no club would do, even if he could lose it a couple of times. Also, you have to remember that very much of the reason Pepe is looked at as "a monster", or "an animal" is because of his looks. There's no doubt about that.

Now I'm certainly not ruling out the episode against Getafe, or the hand-affair with Messi, but Pepe has grown as a footballer -- both defense-related and temperamentally, especially the latter. Not trying to take away your opinion though, just an important point to inform.

@Golden: I guess I just don't see the good footballer in him that you see. My comment was less about the violence and more about what I think is a lack of pace and awareness. But, hey, I'm not head coach at Madrid, and they seem to disagree with me, so... :)

That's how we're created, right? Different perceptions who are there to be discussed. ;-)

I agree with Golden on this.

Arbeloa is surely the weak link.

Soon he will be losing his spot (RB) in Spain's squad to Barcelona's Martin Montoya 
as indicated by Vincente Del Bosque. Montoya has been promising.

Pepe though being extremely rough on pitch is still a better defender than Arbeloa
(that is what I think on seeing the matches on television)
and I would prefer Ramos shifting to his orthodox RB position and making
way for Raphael Varane in CB with Pepe.

As Lodatz said, it is also possible for Pepe to leave and Varane getting his spot.

Is the pun intended? (title)? If so, nice one.