The 17-year-old is a strong, smart and skilful midfielder who will only improve while playing for Rennes and France
By Eric Devin and Adam White for Get French
Football News
Eduardo Camavinga handles pressure better than most. “I remember the
fire as if it were yesterday,” Camavinga told Ouest-France in May. “I was at school and through the windows I saw the firefighters. I saw the damage with my own eyes, the burned house.” His family had moved from Angola and built that house themselves. Now they were watching it burn. “Things were really not going well for my family,” said Camavinga. After relocating the family to a new home, Camavinga’s father turned to his 10-year-old son and said: “Eduardo, you are the hope of the family, it is you who will raise us up.” He has not let his father down.
Many children would find such expectations difficult to bear, but Camavinga took it in his stride. “At the time it made me laugh,” he says. “I was carefree. I didn’t necessarily take it seriously.” Now, however, he takes a great deal seriously. The 17-year-old’s focused, magnetic and domineering performances helped Rennes qualify for the
Champions League and he has now been rewarded with his first call-up to the
France squad.