Manchester United: Casemiro is more than just a destroyer – it’s wrong to dismiss his creative side

If Carlos Casemiro is ever asked to respond to Graeme Souness’s assertion that he is ‘not a great player’, do not rule out the Brazilian agreeing with it.

One of the best stories about him suggests he has always known his limitations. 

As an 11-year-old at a Sao Paulo trial, he spotted that too many of the young hopefuls raised their hand when the coach asked who was a centre-forward – his position – so he said he was a defensive midfielder to have a better chance of making the cut.

‘I always thought it was important to think on my feet,’ he told Sportsmail two seasons ago.

Manchester United’s newest signing Casemiro is more than just a destroyer in midfield

In a trial of around 300 hopefuls he was among the 50 selected, and holding midfielder became his position from then on.

Where Casemiro might disagree with Souness, and with all the other doubts voiced this week, is that he is just a destroyer who can do nothing more than give the ball to someone else who can play.

Yes, he was the facilitator at Madrid: the little half-foul to break up counter-attacks, the pass that sets a more naturally gifted player away, but it is a fallacy that he can do no more.

Across the last three seasons he scored 13 goals: one less than Luka Modric, one more than Toni Kroos. In all, he hit 31 in 336 games.

Madrid would often flip their midfield triangle to unlock stubborn defences, and Casemiro would find himself further forward than Kroos and Modric, showing an ability to time runs into the box and finish like a forward.

He has trailed Modric and Kroos for assists over the last three seasons but there were still 15 passes that led to goals in that time. He certainly will not need Christian Eriksen to do the passing for him.

Roy Keane’s concerns that he goes into a ‘bad dressing room’ are valid but there is maybe no one better in changing habits. By his own admission he thinks more like a coach than a player and has the football analysis tool Wyscout installed at home.

‘I watch all the games,’ he said. ‘My wife gets annoyed with me sometimes, but it’s my job. There is a time for family, of course, but football is my work, it’s my life and I have to be permanently thinking about it.’

His performance in the 2018 Champions League final against Liverpool showed off his abilities

He has trailed Modric and Kroos for assists over the last three seasons but there were still 15 passes that led to goals in that time

And he is not just watching rival players. ‘I always try to read the mind of the other manager; try to work out what they are planning. Sometimes the smallest details, five metres one way or the other, can change a game,’ he said.

The care he takes over conditioning is equally meticulous. Recovery sessions in hyperbaric oxygen chambers, pressure therapy boots that compress the legs to increase blood circulation, cold-water treatments: whatever it takes to gain an advantage.

Many of those practices are now commonplace but there is a sense of responsibility with Casemiro. It is his code and it runs through everything he does.

‘Football was an escape route to achieve something in life. I had the good fortune to take a path that a lot of friends did not,’ he told Sportsmail. 

‘That’s why I enjoy every day of my career. Everything I do, a training session, a talk with the manager. I do it with all my heart.’

Across the last three seasons he scored 13 goals: one less than Modric, one more than Kroos

Mother Magda was a cleaner who brought him, his sister Bianca and brother Lucas, up on her own. Getting through that trial at Sao Paulo two decades ago was a life-changer. Eventually he signed professional papers with the club aged 16 and bought his mum a house. It was only then that she realised ‘Carlinhos’ wasn’t just playing football for fun and he was going to lead the family out of poverty.

He is a leader at club level too.

‘Sometimes people might think I don’t speak a lot, but in the dressing room I try to talk one-to-one with the younger players,’ he says. It remains to be seen whether he can do the same at United. 

He played for Madrid’s youth team and that earned him a respect that he might not have at Old Trafford, even with five Champions League winners’ medals.

It is also true that at almost 31 he can’t possibly have the same hunger he had as a kid. ‘I attack the ball as if it were a plate of food,’ he once told Jorge Valdano.

He is a leader at club level too and helped Real Madrid conquer Europe time and time again

But a different sort of hunger overtook him in May after winning the Champions League in Paris.

He wanted a new challenge and to be part of building something new, or at least renovating something that has been laid to waste.

‘He’s everybody’s ally on the pitch,’ his former coach Julen Lopetegui says about him. ‘He helps everyone.’

He is now at a club where that need is far greater than it was at the team he has left behind.