Raphinha, a former attacker for Leeds United, is currently the front-runner to win the Ballon d’Or after a breakout season with Barcelona.
Raphinha is aiming for a treble and is the front-runner for the next Ballon d’Or. He has scored 28 goals in all competitions this season, and his Barcelona side is leading La Liga, crushing Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League, and looking forward to the Copa del Rey final.
With his goal and two assists against Dortmund in the first leg of the quarterfinal, Raphinha tied Lionel Messi’s greatest performance of the season with 19 goal contributions. The 28-year-old Brazilian has accomplished an amazing feat.
Raphinha was linked to a move to Saudi Arabia following two fantastic seasons. With the help of Lewandowski and Lamine Yamal, he has been the willing runner, finding happiness from the left.
As the only goal scorer in the Champions League this season, he has generated a lot of conversation worldwide. Raphinha has had an incredible journey to the top. He was rejoicing with the Leeds fans in the Brentford away end three years ago after he had assisted the team in avoiding relegation under Jesse Marsch.
When Marcelo Bielsa, the Leeds manager at the time, saw a video of a Nice vs. Rennes match in 2020, he was not even scouting Raphinha. He was trying to find a replacement left-back.
During his season with Rennes in France, Raphinha made an impression under Marcelo Bielsa.
“I did a video of Nice versus Rennes and Raphinha absolutely tore the Nice left-back to shreds. Marcelo saw it and said to me, ‘Who is this player?’ I said, ‘That is Raphinha, he has had an unbelievable season, helping Rennes to qualify for the Champions League.’
“I remember saying to him, ‘He is probably way out of our budget because I am sure they will not let him go for anything less than £30m after the season he has had.’ They had just bought him from Sporting the season before for around £20m.
“But I think Marcelo then contacted [director of football] Victor [Orta]. Victor reached out to Rennes and they said it was impossible but it came about in the last couple of days of the window. It was crazy that we pulled that off. We could not believe our luck.”
Raphinha was a revelation at Leeds, adapting quickly to life in the Premier League and, life under Bielsa. “He is by far the best player that I have had the pleasure of being around. He is crazy talented but his work ethic is unbelievable,” says Clavijo.
“From the first day, he was just incredible in training. If you talk to any of the boys that were there at the time, they will tell you how good he was in training. He was just on a different level to everybody else. But the work rate is really what surprised everybody.
“His physical numbers were out of this world. It was just incredible.” Indeed, during his debut season as a Premier League player, his only full season under Bielsa, Raphinha made 715 sprints, the most by any winger that year, despite missing eight matches.
When all positions are taken into account, Raphinha made more than 10% more sprints than any other Premier League regular during that season, even though the game was played inside a stadium without any fans. He was self-motivated, even though his coach provided some support.
Raphinha has always aspired to be the greatest and has been fiercely competitive. His talent, including his ability to dribble, his intelligence, and his finishing, meant that he was bound to make it to the top levels of football.
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Raphinha did not come to Europe in order to join one of the top clubs there. After relocating to Vitoria Guimaraes, Portugal, he was placed in Vitor Campelos’ B team, where he still had a lot to learn.
“He arrived from Brazil and played his own way,” Campelos said. Raphinha wanted to get better.
“He always wanted to learn more. Always he would ask me, ‘What do you think about this? Okay, so if the ball is there, where must I be now?’ I was a little stubborn with him about the positioning of the body and the positioning of the feet to receive the ball.”
In this context, Raphinha’s continued evolution as a player is a little less surprising. “One good thing that he had was a big commitment to the team and the other players,” says Campelos.
“We saw that immediately when he started working with us. Those small details, even when we were doing some simple passing exercises in training, he always tried to do them at the maximum intensity, in the right way, because he is a worker, a professional.
“I remember sometimes his father watched training. We felt that he wanted to be something in football. He wanted to be someone and wanted to reach a high level. So he had this in his head from the start. He wanted to play in big teams, to play for Brazil.”
Even though Raphinha was only a teenager in 2016, that was still a long way off, but despite all the subtleties, Campelos tried to teach him, a crucial component of his game was already in place. The ability to complete, which is evident today, was also a strength in those days.
“From the start, his shooting accuracy was very strong when one against one with the goalkeeper. It was unusual. He would score maybe nine out of 10.” Helpfully, in LaLiga this season, Raphinha has had more than twice as many one-on-ones as anyone else.
“Raphinha was different. These kind of players, they change the game totally because they do things differently. Sometimes it can create chaos in the game”, according to the experienced Portuguese coach.
Raphinha had to adjust to the team’s philosophy at Barcelona because he could not play there if he did not adapt, but he did so maturely and remarkably well. He has undoubtedly transformed into an all-around player at Barcelona, and his change in role is partly due to the fact that he can both create and score goals from the left, which has led to him scoring as many goals in La Liga this season as he did in his first two seasons combined.
Martins talks about how proud he is of Raphinha now, while Campelos enjoys seeing his potential realized. In fact, Raphinha is one of the club’s five captains, part of the leadership group; Lewandowski, for instance, is not one of the five, which is another factor in his growth this season.
