Varane reveals missing games with concussion after suffering during 2 matches

Raphael Varane is urging footballers to take the effects of concussion more seriously after admitting that he has played some of the biggest games of his career with head injuries.

The Manchester United centre half revealed that he has even missed games this season after asking for medical staff to assess his condition. In an interview with L’Equipe entirely focused on concussion, the former France defender said he would be in favour of a more strictly-enforced rule that would allow team doctors to veto players and managers without pushback.

And Varane, 30, honestly admitted: “I don't know if I will live to be 100, but I know that I have damaged my body.”

He said that he has had “several” concussions throughout his career and of his three worst performances in “at least two” he had suffered head injuries “a few days earlier” - “against Germany in the quarter-finals of the 2014 World Cup and with Real Madrid against Manchester City in the round of 16 of the 2020 Champions League.”

Varane said that in 2014 he did not remember the rest of the round-of-16 game against South Africa after heading a cross. He added: “I finished the match but I'm in ‘autopilot’ mode. If someone had spoken to me at that time, I don't even know if I would have been able to respond."

Leading into the Germany clash he said, “I was not in my normal state and so I was taken care of. I had lost weight because I was dehydrated, I was out of shape but played because it was a World Cup quarter-final.”

Varane, expressing concern for his seven-year-old son, says he supports the idea of underage players being banned from heading the ball and would also be in favour of limits placed on professional players in training.

But he admits it is not a hot topic among