France and Real Madrid are a beautiful love story. In recent years, many French people have brilliantly defended the merengue colors, like Kylian Mbappé, Karim Benzema or Raphaël Varane, not to mention the adventures of Zinedine Zidane on the pitch and on the sidelines at the Bernabéu. And at the moment, there is another French player who is starting to make waves in Madrid: Léo Lemaitre.
Young 16-year-old central defender, born in Zaragoza (Spain) to a French father and a Spanish mother – he has dual nationality – he joined The Factory at 12 years old. Since his arrival at the Real Madrid training center, he has quickly established himself as an indisputable starter in each age category, and has even already started with the U19 team in the Youth League. An upgrade which testifies to the confidence that the Merengues have in their player, and they have just reinforced him with a new contract until 2028, and above all, a release clause of 100 million euros, which is very rare for players who have never played in the professional world. Also a sign that Madrid decision-makers are aware that other clubs in Europe are also well aware of all his qualities and his potential.
A star clause
And precisely, what are the qualities of this young left-hander? He is a very strong player, well over 1.90 meters tall, and everything indicates that his growth is not finished. Which necessarily helps him in aerial play and in duels, but Lemaitre is above all a modern defender, with qualities of a midfielder practically: technical, good at restarting, intelligent in his choices, good in anticipation and reading the game. A profile more “Spanish” than “French”, if we had to caricature. The newspaper AS recently compared him to Dean Huijsen. Better still, he is not particularly hampered by his size and has great ease in moving around, as well as changing pace and direction, being a very mobile and fast player.
Internally, he is considered a player who has the potential to settle into the first team in the medium-long term, and is Real Madrid’s biggest hope in this position with Joan Martinez, for the moment a little better known to the general public. He was also at the heart of a war between Spain and France, since he had represented the colors of the Iberian country in U15 and U16. But it seems that the FFF has just won a nice battle since he was recently called up to the Blues in U17, and a member of his entourage explained to the newspaper in September The Team that his dream was to play for France. Suffice to say that Real Madrid and the staff of the FFF and the French team can rub their hands…
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– UPDATE
