Reinildo Mavares will run out under the bright lights of the Wanda Metropolitano for the Madrid Derby on Sunday night.
He’ll likely spend much of his evening with one of the hardest tasks in football - keeping Vinicius Jr quiet. On the touchline, he’ll have Diego Simeone barking orders. It doesn't really get much more intense.
It also doesn't get much further from Reinildo's humble beginnings in Mozambique, a country from which top footballers have been few and far between and where he spent all of his formative years.
“It was a very complicated journey,” he explains, before going down a long, winding path featuring tears, heartbreak and setbacks ultimately leading him to one of Europe's biggest clubs.
Born in Beira, Mozambique’s fourth-largest city, Reinildo was inspired to play footballer by his father and grandfather. After watching his dad train, he decided to start playing himself.
“One day when I was about eight or nine I went to play with my friends and I said, ‘Dad, I’m a good player, come and watch me!’" he reveals.
“He came and watched me and said, ‘if you continue like that, you’re going to be a good player’, so I kept that in my mind and said to myself, ‘I’ve got to continue to play and continue to fight’. That’s when the journey started.”
When he turned 18, he was called up to the Ferroviário da Beira first-team and, just six months later, was handed his first senior international call-up.
“I was very, very young, only 18 at the time, and I’d only been playing professionally for six months, then I played with players who were playing in Europe.
“That gave me even more strength to want to continue to be a better player. I knew that, gradually, I wanted to get up to the top, so I continued to work very hard.”
Early international honours saw clubs elsewhere begin to come calling - but Reinildo didn’t have the heart to leave his mother behind. When she tragically passed away in 2015, when he was 21, it changed his outlook.
“I stayed in my country and at my club for three years playing professionally, and after that, my mother passed away in 2015," he says. “That was the only thing that had made me want to stay in my city, my country.
"Teams had come along, they wanted to sign me up, but I spoke to my mother and she didn't want me to leave, she cried, and I felt bad about leaving. Unfortunately, she passed away and that’s when I said, ‘OK, now it’s not up to my parents, it’s up to me to look to the future’.”
He headed to the capital of Mozambique and, before he had even played a game for GD Maputo, he received a dream call.
“After one month I got information from Portugal - ‘Benfica want to sign you up’,” he explains. “I hadn’t played for the club in the capital and I already had an offer from Portugal, so on the 29th December 2015 I arrived in Portugal and started to play there.”
Initially, Reinildo trained with the first-team whilst playing for Benfica B, but he suffered a muscle problem early in the 2016 season which ruled him out for several months. It prompted him to ask to leave in search of opportunities elsewhere.
“I spoke to the president and said, ‘I really want to have the opportunity to play, I want to find a team where I will have the opportunity to play, because I need time. I know I’m very capable, but I really need an opportunity’.”
He had loan spells in the second and third tiers before signing for SAD Belenenses in the Portuguese top flight. His performances prompted French club Lille to come calling in 2019, where he made his big breakthrough.
He was part of the Lille side that won the French title, shocking Paris Saint-Germain in the 2020-21 season, and was named in the Ligue 1 team of the year in the process. Much of his success is attributed to Christophe Galtier, who has now been handed his own major opportunity as PSG manager.
“It was a very important time for me,” Reinildo says. “It really marked me. He’s a great person and I was playing with a great squad.
“I learnt from day one when I played for Lille, and I learnt a lot from Galtier. I’m so grateful for him, for the things he taught me in training and he showed me not to fear anything. He said, ‘you always have to know when you can do risky things and when you can be sure of what you’re doing’.
“I always saw him as a great coach who was worthy of a chance to coach one of the best clubs in the world. He’s done great work, fantastic work at Lille, at Nice and now he’s at PSG so he’s a coach I think that’s on the list of the best coaches in the world.”
After Galtier’s exit, Reinildo’s time in France came to an end in January as Diego Simeone and Atletico Madrid made a move. Whilst it is an entirely different atmosphere under the fiery Argentine, he believes he has found a perfect fit for his own intensity and passion.
“I feel great with the team,” he says. “I’m not scared of the coach at all, we respect him and I respect him a lot, because I think he’s the best coach in the world.
“It’s like I’m living in a dream to be able to have him as my coach, and I’m very enthusiastic. I feel like it’s a true honour to be in this team.
“I hear people say, ‘Simeone is very demanding’, but I like demanding coaches. I think it’s yet another opportunity for me, so it’s great to be able to work with him.
“I like to work hard, I never complain and I like to learn a lot, too. I’m always working 120% and to have this sort of coach, who is a good leader and wants you to work hard, it’s totally suited for me. I’m so grateful for the opportunity he gives me, and his belief in me.”
Simeone’s belief has seen Reinildo deployed in a new role, often on the left of a back three rather than his more favoured wing-back role. It has largely been a success, as he instantly earned Simeone’s trust and yielded results.
In the 19 matches he started last season, Atleti’s uncharacteristically leaky defence tightened up, conceding just 14 goals compared to 40 in the 32 games without him. This season, he has played every minute in LaLiga and feels increasingly confident in his new role.
“As I’m left-footed, this is easy for me,” he insists. “There’s not a lot of difference, because I like challenges, I like experimenting different things. I always play intensely and like it’s my position, which helps me adapt.
“Also, the coach has given me a lot of support during training. I’m here, always at the service of the coach. If I’m a left winger, great, I play that, I run up and down, but there’s not a big difference. Maybe I can attack a little bit more as a central player, but I just want to give my utmost to the team.”
The big difference he has noticed in LaLiga is intensity from week to week - and that's something on which he continues to thrive.
“The difference is that LaLiga’s very intense,” he explains. “There’s a lot of contact, a lot of pressure and these are things I like - it means I feel stronger.
“The intensity of the match, the pressure, and to have great teams to play against means LaLiga is one of the best in the world. I like this intensity, and the fact is it’s a great competition. Each match is an unknown factor, obviously, and that’s what I really like about it.”
It does not get much more intense than this weekend’s clash with Real Madrid and their army of superstars, led by the in-form Vinicius Jr. It is already a crucial game for the ambitions of both sides, not to mention a chance to gain local bragging rights early in the season.
“I’m a player who doesn’t think about the other players, whether it’s Vinicius or whoever, I face every player in the same way,” Reinildo insists.
“Obviously some are more aggressive, some you have to pay twice as much attention to because they’re very fast, great players.
“But I’m not looking at their name - I do my work and I’m a defender, my job is to stop them, and that’s what I’m going to try and do like I do with all other players.
“I know Real Madrid have great players, but I’m on the pitch to do my job and help my teammates.
“We know we’re playing a great team, champions of the league here, great players, lots of talent. We know what we’re going to do and we’re working really hard to make sure it’s a great match.
“We know the points are very important in LaLiga so we can achieve our objectives, so it’s going to be a very interesting match, an intense match, and we’re going to give it everything.”
Atletico Madrid vs Real Madrid is live on Sunday, September 18 at 20:00 on ITV4, Premier Sports 2 and LaLiga TV.
