Federico Valverde

Federico Santiago Valverde Dipetta (born 22 July 1998) is a Uruguayan professional footballer who plays as a central-midfielder for La Liga club Real Madrid and the Uruguay national team. Regarded as one of the best midfielders in the world, he is known for his pace, work rate, stamina, and shooting ability. Mainly a central-midfielder, he is also able to play as a defensive-midfielder, a right-winger and occasionally a right-back.

Valverde began his professional career with Peñarol in 2015, winning the Uruguayan Primera División in his first season. In 2016, he joined Real Madrid, initially playing for the club's reserve team. He made his first-team debut in 2017 and has since gone on to make over 150 appearances for the club, winning three La Liga titles, two FIFA Club World Cups, two UEFA Champions League titles, a UEFA Super Cup, and the Copa del Rey.

Valverde made his international debut for Uruguay in 2017, and has since represented his country at three Copa América tournaments (2019, 2021, 2024) and the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

Early life
Valverde was born on 22 July 1998 in Unión, a neighbourhood in the capital city of Montevideo, to Julio Valverde and Doris Dipetta. He has one older brother, Diego, and two step-brothers, Pablo and Matías Castro. Valverde is of Spanish and Italian descent and became a naturalised Spanish citizen in 2020 after receiving his Spanish passport. Valverde started his youth career with his local neighbourhood club, Estudiantes de la Unión. He then tried out for Peñarol a few years later and was scouted by Néstor Gonçalves.

Peñarol
Valverde spent most of his youth career with Peñarol, where he quickly made an impression. He made his club debut on 23 July, one day after his 17th birthday, in an international friendly against Cruzeiro where they won 3–1. He had then his senior debut for the club on 16 August 2015 in their first fixture of the 2015–16 season against Cerro, during which he was guided and mentored by his childhood idol and teammate, Diego Forlán.

He became part of the Uruguayan national youth teams and attracted the interest of European clubs, including Arsenal, Barcelona, Chelsea and Real Madrid.

Real Madrid
In July 2016, Valverde was transferred from Peñarol to Real Madrid, initially being assigned to their reserve team Castilla. Two months later, he made his debut for Castilla against Real Unión, in a game which his team eventually lost. He became a regular member of the Castilla line-up his debut season, and scored his first goal against Albacete in December 2016.

In regards to his growing importance to the team, Santiago Solari, his coach at Castilla, said on 29 January 2017, "I'm very happy with him. He has adapted very well to the club and country. Valverde always generates a lot of football in midfield."

Loan to Deportivo La Coruña
On 22 June 2017, Valverde was loaned to La Liga side Deportivo de La Coruña for one year. He made his debut in the competition on 10 September, replacing Fede Cartabia in a 2–4 home loss against Real Sociedad. Valverde contributed with 24 league appearances during the campaign, as the side suffered relegation.

2018: Return to Real Madrid
Upon returning from loan, Valverde impressed new manager Julen Lopetegui during the 2018–19 pre-season and was definitively assigned to the first-team. On 23 October 2018, Valverde made his official Real Madrid debut in the UEFA Champions League Group stage against Viktoria Plzeň at the Bernabéu at just 20 years old. He made 25 appearances and won the FIFA Club World Cup in his first season with the first team.

2019–2021: First team breakthrough
With the return of Zinedine Zidane to the dugout and the departure of Marcos Llorente, Valverde broke through to become a key player of the squad during the 2019–20 season. On 9 November 2019, he scored his first goal for Real Madrid, in a 4–0 away win over Eibar in La Liga.

On 12 January 2020, Valverde tackled Álvaro Morata during the Supercopa de España Final against Atlético Madrid, committing a professional foul and stopping play with Morata clean through on goal. Valverde was sent off, but his actions stopped what was a likely goal, forced a penalty shootout which Real Madrid won, and earned him the Man of The Match award and widespread praise. Atlético Madrid manager Diego Simeone later referred to the tackle as "the most important play of the game". He made 33 appearances during the league season, as Real Madrid won the 2019–20 La Liga.

On 27 September, Valverde scored Real Madrid's first goal of the 2020–21 season away to Betis in La Liga in an eventual 3–2 win and was selected as the 'King of The Match'. This was also his 50th La Liga match for Los Blancos. One month later on 24 October, Valverde scored against Barcelona at the Camp Nou in just five minutes in an eventual 3–1 league win. He became just the second Uruguayan to score in El Clásico (after Luis Suárez) and the first for Real Madrid. One week later, Valverde scored again, against Huesca, in a 4–1 league win at the Alfredo Di Stéfano Stadium. This was his third goal of the season, meaning he had already scored more than in the entirety of the previous campaign.

2021–present: Contract extensions and Champions League victory
On 24 August 2021, Valverde extended his contract until 2027. On 12 January 2022, he scored Real Madrid's third goal in a 3–2 win over Barcelona in extra time of the Supercopa de España semi-final, a tournament which Madrid eventually went on to win. On 28 May, he assisted Vinícius Júnior to score the winning goal in a 1–0 win over Liverpool in the 2022 UEFA Champions League Final to clinch a record 14th UEFA Champions League title for Real Madrid.

On 14 September 2022, he scored his first Champions League goal in a 2–0 victory over RB Leipzig. In the 2022–23 season, he netted 12 goals in all competitions, fulfilling his coach Carlo Ancelotti's pre-season prediction that he would score more than 10 goals. On 9 November 2023, Valverde extended his contract with Real Madrid until 30 June 2029.

On 9 April 2024, he scored a first-time volley in a 3–3 draw against Manchester City in the Champions League quarter-finals, which eventually earned him the honour of Goal of the Season. Following the victory in the Champions League final, it was announced that he would acquire the number 8 shirt after Toni Kroos' retirement.

International career
Valverde was awarded the Silver Ball at the 2017 FIFA U-20 World Cup as Uruguay finished fourth in the tournament.

In 2017, Valverde was caught up in a controversial gesture after making a "slant eyes" celebration after scoring in the Under-20 World Cup. Valverde denied that the celebration was racist but stated that it was in homage to his first agent, Edgardo "El Chino" Lasalvia. FIFA called on Uruguay to explain Valverde's actions, as well as a celebratory photo of the squad in which several Celeste players made the same gestures.

He was called up to the senior squad for the first time in August 2017, debuted with the Uruguay national team on 5 September of that year, and scored his first international goal with the senior team in a match against Paraguay. He was named in Uruguay's provisional 26-man pool for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, but he was left out of the final 23-man squad.

Valverde was included by manager Óscar Tabárez in the final 23-man Uruguay squad for the 2019 Copa América in Brazil. In the quarter-finals against Peru on 29 June, a 0–0 draw after regulation time had the match go to a penalty shoot-out; Uruguay lost the shoot-out 4–5 and was eliminated from the competition.

In June 2021, he was selected to the squad at the 2021 Copa América. In November 2022, he was named in the final squad for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.

Personal life
Valverde is in a relationship with Argentinian journalist and presenter Mina Bonino. They have two sons, Benicio, born in 2020, and Bautista, born in 2023. Valverde's previous nickname was Pajarito (baby bird), but now refers to himself as Halcón (falcon), alluding to his growth as a professional footballer. "Everyone joined the Halcón thing, and I liked it, it was very funny to me. There were people who got angry because they wanted to keep calling me Pajarito, but I'm the Halcón now," said Valverde in an interview.

Valverde allegedly punched Villarreal's player Álex Baena at the Santiago Bernabéu parking lot following a 3–2 defeat in La Liga match On 8 April 2023, which was presumably caused by a comment Baena made to Valverde about an unborn baby his wife, Mina Bonino, was carrying; a few weeks earlier, the couple experienced a miscarriage scare after it was rumoured Bonino was suffering serious problems with the pregnancy. Later that year, on 3 July, the case against Valverde was dismissed as a magistrates' court found no evidence of criminality.

International

 * Scores and results list Uruguay's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Valverde goal.

Honours
Peñarol
 * Primera División: 2015–16

Real Madrid
 * La Liga: 2019–20, 2021–22, 2023–24
 * Copa del Rey: 2022–23
 * Supercopa de España: 2020, 2022, 2024
 * UEFA Champions League: 2021–22, 2023–24
 * UEFA Super Cup: 2022
 * FIFA Club World Cup: 2018, 2022

Uruguay
 * Copa América third place: 2024

Individual
 * La Liga Team of the Season: 2022–23, 2023–24
 * FIFA U-20 World Cup Silver Ball: 2017
 * UEFA La Liga Revelation Team of the year: 2019–20
 * La Liga Player of the Month: September 2022
 * FIFA Club World Cup Silver Ball: 2022