Raphael Varane

Most people know the stress of final exams. All the hard work you’ve put in for a semester of school possibly all undone with one poor performance on a test. When Raphaël Varane was studying for his baccalauréat, he had an additional stressor. He happened to be one of the most sought-after transfer targets in all of football and French football legend Zinedine Zidane was on the line. In this battle of attacker and defender, the young center-back emerged victorious, defending his study time and asking Zidane to call him back another day instead.

Zidane would make the most of his second opportunity, though, securing the services of the then 18-year-old Raphaël Xavier Varane for Real Madrid. It didn’t take long for Varane to make an impact for the Madridistas, becoming the youngest foreign-born player to ever score for the club at an age of 18 years, 152 days.

As part of the stout Real Madrid back line, Varane became the youngest player ever to win 3 UEFA Champions League titles. All told, Rafael has been a part of 4 Champions League victories, 2 La Liga titles, and 1 Copa del Rey in his Real Madrid career.

In 2018, while suited up for Les Bleus, he matched the French legend on the other end of that phone from his high school days, helping France triumph in the FIFA World Cup, touching off celebrations along the Champs-Élysées 20 years after Zidane hoisted the trophy. He is just the 4th player in history to have been a Champions League winner and a World Cup winner in the same year, and later in 2018 he was named a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur, one of the highest honors that can be bestowed upon a French citizen.

With all the pressures of being an international superstar for club and country, Raphaël is a man who knows the value of some daily downtime, and his preferred method of unwinding is to fire up a game of FIFA or Call of Duty, put on his HyperX headset, and relax.

At HyperX, we’re all gamers, and we know that comfort is just as important to our fellow gamers as sound quality and reliability. Raphaël Varane knows the value of having a supremely comfortable headset that also provides crystal-clear communication and sound, and that’s why he chose to partner with HyperX. Whether he’s online calling in airstrikes on the frontlines, or clearing the back line, Varane doesn’t take kindly to having his opponents in his territory. If you find yourself one-on-one with Raphaël, consider calling for backup, or passing off to a teammate, lest you want to end up in one of his highlight compilations.

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