Zidane is to blame, Ancelotti didn’t believe in him eight years ago. “He gives a lot of bad passes,” said the Italian coach. Casemiro left the following season for Lopetegui’s Porto and established himself. Real Madrid got him back for fifteen million euros in July 2015. And on March 3, 2016, after a 0-1 loss to Atletico on the last day of that February, Zizou started him. The coach had come to the Bernabeu bench on January 4, 2016, replacing Benitez. And the Brazilian established himself in the center of Zinedine’s field that third day of March, against Levante, at the Valencia City Stadium, never to lose his position again.
The Brazilian ends his contract in 2023 and the club has to negotiate the extension of that agreement; He was the only player who in December said that the salary was being lowered again, in front of the squad, when Ramos presented Florentino Perez’s request to the group Five years later, Casemiro is Real Madrid’s most important footballer. And he is the pivot of the French coach’s system. The key man who defends and steals. The player who acts as a sapper in the middle line, who becomes the third central when it is necessary to hold the result, and the spiker who scores goals with a header when the team urgently requires it, as he did in Valladolid. In Pucelle, precisely, he scored the decisive 0-1 and then became the third “stopper” to maintain the advantage.
Transfermarkt, which values players low, considers Carlos Henrique Casimiro, known as Casemiro, the most expensive professional in the Madrid squad. It costs 85 million euros. And Real Madrid considers it non-transferable. The Madrid club responds with this certainty to market movements. The Brazilian has been placed in the «market» next summer by certain international intermediaries as a player of change in the event of a great signing by Florentino Perez, be it Haaland or Mbappe. And Real Madrid is clear that Casemiro will not be transferred under any circumstances.
He is the only untouchable. The rest of the players can enter an operation. What the club has to do later is to negotiate its renewal, because its contract ends in 2023. It only has two years left. Normally, the entity would have already attacked that contract extension, but the crisis and the delay in the negotiations with Sergio Ramos and Lucas have meant that the cases of Casemiro and Varane have been postponed. They will be attacked in the coming months, when the season ends, starting in May.
The relevance of Casemiro is corroborated once again by the concern in Real Madrid about his suspension in the Champions League, which will prevent him from playing the second leg against Atalanta in Madrid. The white club has appealed the warning, but the UEFA discipline commission will not withdraw it and the Brazilian will not play the duel against the Bergamo team. It will be Valverde who will do that function.
Casemiro was the only player who at the end of December said that his salary was lowered again, in front of the entire squad, when Sergio Ramos presented Florentino Perez’s request to the group, given the crisis generated by the pandemic. Subsequently, many colleagues have agreed to the reduction in private calls from the entity. But the Brazilian was left alone before the entire squad when the captain spoke. That shows personality.
