Real Madrid’s emerging talent rescued his family through football.

Eduardo Camavinga was born in Miconje, a small community in a refugee camp in Angola. He and his family would then settle, in 2003, in Fougeres, about 50 kilometres north-east of Rennes, France.

Camavinga’s childhood wasn’t easy. He was the third of six siblings, and his mother tried to get him to commit himself to judo. After spending a lot of time at home destroying everything in sight, though, his father Celestino took him to play football at Drapeau Fougeres, a modest club that will now receive a slice of his move to Real Madrid.

“I didn’t know anything,” Camavinga says now. “My mother took me and signed me up. I remember taking the ball and dribbling around.”

At seven, Camavinga started kicking a ball for the first time. From then, he would always play above his age group. Rennes were impressed and invited him to take part in a summer tournament, and it was there that he caught the eye, with Julian Stephan watching on.

A fire that changed his life

In 2013 Camavinga was only 11, but things were about to fall apart. His signing at Rennes was almost over the line, but his house burned down. Through a charity, his family received the necessities.

“They lost everything,” said Nicolas Martinais, the man who trained him in his early days. “That house was a sea of tears.”

“The day after, I had to go to training and football helped me to relax,” Camavinga himself remembered. “It was a way to escape.”

Looking back at his childhood in a 2020 interview with Ouest France, Camavinga remembered words from his father from that time.

“Don’t worry, you’re going to be a great footballer and will rebuild this house,” the player’s father said.

“It’s true that he told me that,” Camavinga said. “I was the family’s hope. Suddenly, I was motivated. My parents were already happy, but I knew I could make them even happier.”

Resilience and an ability to overcome adversity

Camavinga hasn’t forgotten that morning.

“We had been at that house, which my parents had built, for a less than a year,” Camavinga said.

“I remember the fire as if it were yesterday. I was at school and saw the firefighters passing out of the window. At the end of the class the teachers came to me and my little sister and explained what had happened. My dad came to get us and took us there. Everything was burned, everything was destroyed.”

Now, at just 18, Camavinga will wear Real Madrid’s shirt.