Federico Valverde, born in Montevideo in 1998, captains Real Madrid and has won two Champions League titles and three La Liga titles with the club. He scored in the 23rd minute of Madrid’s 2-1 win over Inter on matchday 1 of this season’s Champions League.
Federico Santiago Valverde Dipetta was born on 22 July 1998 in Unión, a neighbourhood of the Uruguayan capital Montevideo, to Julio Valverde and Doris Dipetta. He has one older brother, Diego, and two step-brothers, Pablo and Matías Castro. He is of Spanish and Italian descent and became a naturalised Spanish citizen in 2020. He started his youth career with the neighbourhood club Estudiantes de la Unión, and tried out for Peñarol a few years later, where he was scouted by Néstor Gonçalves.
At Peñarol he made his club debut on 23 July 2015, a day after his 17th birthday, in a friendly against Cruzeiro that his side won 3-1. He made his senior debut on 16 August 2015 against Cerro, mentored by his childhood idol and teammate Diego Forlán. Arsenal, Barcelona, Chelsea and Real Madrid were all interested, and he won the Uruguayan Primera División in his first season.
In July 2016 he moved to Real Madrid, assigned at first to the reserve side Castilla. He made his debut for Castilla two months later and scored his first goal against Albacete in December 2016. His coach there, Santiago Solari, said in January 2017: “Valverde always generates a lot of football in midfield.” In June 2017 he was loaned to Deportivo de La Coruña for a year, playing 24 league games in a season that ended in relegation.
He impressed manager Julen Lopetegui in the 2018 pre-season and was assigned to the first team. He made his official Madrid debut in the Champions League group stage against Viktoria Plzeň on 23 October 2018. He has since made more than 300 appearances for Madrid and won three La Liga titles, two FIFA Club World Cups, two Champions League titles, two UEFA Super Cups and the Copa del Rey. He is known for his versatility, work rate, pace and shooting, mainly playing as a central midfielder but also able to play at right-back, and he captains the club.
For Uruguay he made his international debut in 2017 and has played at three Copa América tournaments (2019, 2021 and 2024) and two World Cups (2022 and 2026).
This season began with a goal in the 23rd minute of a 2-1 win over Inter, after Kylian Mbappé put Madrid ahead in the 14th. On Wednesday Madrid travel to Roma. With Mbappé and Valverde in the form they showed against Inter, Madrid are among the sixteen teams level on three points after matchday 1. Inter’s Carlos Augusto pulled one back, but Madrid held on. Valverde’s status as captain at 28 shows how far a boy from Unión has travelled, from a first Peñarol title at 17 to leading the Spanish giants. His debut for Castilla, in September 2016 against Real Unión, ended in defeat, but he was a regular by the end of that season.
Image: Federico Valverde in an interview (file photo). Photo: Real Madrid / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)
