“I’m a great player, you have to come see me!” a youngest implored his father Reinildo Mandava, the new Atlético winger who could make his debut this Sunday at the Camp Nou. “Look, you’re still not good enough. There will be time,” he replied.
At one point in the match, the young Mozambican looked at the tree that was attached to the pitch. Behind, hidden, his father, who was also a footballer, witnessed the meeting. Like his grandfather, his sister… He thought he hadn’t seen him. But boy did he know of your presence.
He began to run and score goals. Back home, he confessed: “My son, if you continue like this, you’re going to be a great player.” Soon, he reinildo When he was 11 years old, he lost his father. At 21, before emigrating to European football, he fired his mother.
“These two losses have marked his character over the years. Although on the positive side. Most of his conquests have served to honor his memory”, he tells EL PERIÓDICO DE ESPAÑA, a newspaper that belongs to this same group, Prensa Ibérica, Luis Goncalves, former coach of Mozambique, with whom Reinildo has been an absolute international since he was 20, with more than 30 calls.
Gonçalves first acted as assistant coach of Abel Xavier (2016-2018) to later assume the role of main technician (2019-2021). Although from a Portuguese family, he was born in Maputo, the capital of the African country, whose sport has seen evolution in recent years. ”Football in Mozambique is not easy. There is a lack of effective organizations and professionalismespecially by the leaders. It is necessary for the local championship to improve its conditions so that more Reinildos come out”, he defends.
“Go away, my son”
This situation is evidenced by the player for whom Atlético would have paid three million more variables at Little, current French champion. Reinildo was not one of those precocious signings that, even in childhood, go to Europe. In 2012, at the age of 18, he signed his first professional contract with the rail, a team from his native Beira, the second most populous city in Mozambique and devastated in 2019 by terrible floods.
The colchonero winger conquers several titles, but his first payrolls do not exceed 30 euros per month (according to official sources, each Mozambican citizen receives 26 on average), as the player himself confessed in an interview with The Team. Until 2015 arrives, a key year in the life of a footballer who completed his studies in Business Management.
Receive an offer from Benfica to serve in his subsidiary, the team of his dreams, and his mother falls seriously ill. “go my son” (“Go away, my son”), he tells him on his deathbed, a phrase that, as he has remembered more than once, resonates in his head when making any decision. A few hours after the funeral, Reinildo, an orphan, was traveling to Portugal.
Without looking back, and trying to honor the memory of his parents, he sought to make an impact from the beginning, although his physical condition was far from the standards of the European leagues. “He has always been a player smart, fast and aggressive, qualities to which he has been adding technical resources to become a modern winger, on the rise, but above all defends well”, explains Gonçalves.
The virtues that he brought from the factory allowed him to be part of the list of players of the first team of the Benfica for the 2016 preseason. The situation did not overcome him in sports, but he did have emotional challenges such as sharing a dressing room with the Brazilian Jonas, ex Valencia. As he did not dare to greet him, he forced a clash with him in training. The battering ram fell to the ground and Reinildo held out his hand to introduce himself in his own way.
hero on loan
An injury cut his progress. When he surpassed her, his opportunities in the team of Rui Vitória they had disappeared. He had no choice but to accept a six-month loan to Fafe of the Second Lusa. “I preferred that to standing still. The experience helped me grow a lot, because this competition is much tougher physically”, he said in an interview with the official Lille channel.
The Fafe descended that year, but Reinildo was treated like a hero. “The club’s fans wouldn’t let me leave the house, not even to go to the supermarket. They told me: ‘You don’t play like a mercenary! It seems unbelievable that you are a player on loan! You are the only one who feels the shirt!”
Since that course, he has had the image of “a generator of a good atmosphere in the locker room”, as Gonçalves points out, a condition that adds to his willingness, as he demonstrated in his next loan to Covilhã (also second) until in the summer of 2018 he signs for the Belenenses SAD of the first Portuguese, where he was presented as “a side”, but also “as a winger”, or “central” and “up to nine”, evidencing his competitive spirit. Without him being aware, a magnificent first lap is taking place that will give him his great opportunity in the 2019 winter market.
“We were playing against Port. We were ready to go out to the stadium, when the president of Belenenses bursts in and tells George Silas, my coach: ‘Reinildo can’t play, he’s going to sign for Lille!’ I thought it was a joke, mostly because there was no substitute winger. we arrived at Dear and confirm the news. I only did the warm-up, but I did not touch a ball for fear of injuring myself”, he told the official channel of the French club that requested his transfer with a purchase option that he finally executed.
Best winger in Ligue 1
From the technical secretariat they had full confidence in him, despite the fact that he played five minutes in four months, always behind the international with Mali, Youssouf Kone, who is leaving in the summer of 2019. Was it your turn? Then the Croatian appeared Bradaric on their way. Once again, work and patience from the second row. Resilience by flag.
And finally came the consecration, during the past 2019/2020 season in which he was one of the pillars of the Ligue 1 title won by Lille against the almighty PSG. Reinildo was declared the best winger in a championship that he celebrated wrapped in the Mozambican flag, where he was received as a hero by almost everyone.
“He has always shown immense pride in his roots, remaining humble despite progress. He has assumed the role of being an example for millions of young people, who welcome him in crowds when he returns”, explains Luis Gonçalves. This consideration earned him to be decorated with the Sports Merit Medal.
“Reinildo will always be Reinildo. The talkative friend who is never afraid to dream and who lives everything with courage and faith”, he confessed at the reception of the award from Filipe Nyussi, current president of the country, who said that his victory “will inspire other athletes and all those who strive to achieve impossible goals.”
armed assault
The mass bath was completed last June with the gift to his relatives of a house in his hometown, Border, whose construction was completed in May, when it held an opening ceremony. The star of it was him, who took a microphone to interpret ‘Batacuios‘ (“Thieves”), a song by local artist Gil Pinto, which talks about crime in the suburbs, with lines like “first they squeeze your neck, then they slap you and finally they steal your mobile”.
As fate would have it, after receiving recognition from the Mozambican government, some batacuios They tried to rob him to steal his brand new Toyota Hilux. The assailants did not achieve their objective and Reinildo ended up taking refuge in a police station. He also anticipated his return to France, to forget about the incident as soon as possible and continue adding experience at Lille, also in the Champions League, where the French team, like Atlético, has qualified for the round of 16.
Lodi’s antithesis
The Atlético followed him for a long time. His intention was to incorporate him in July, but he anticipated the transfer to January, the month in which he has renewed his ‘wings’ with the addition of Wass as a wild card for the right back (converted midfielder) after Trippier’s departure to Newcastle. The Mozambican left-back will compete with Renan Lodi, of whom he is his antithesis, and with Beautiful Mario, a central defender who has played games on this flank, with good offensive performance.
“Reinildo has perfected his defensive virtues. He has improved in the aerial game. He knows how to wait for his opportunity to cut and shows great strength in individual duels. It is going to be a resource with which Simeone recovers his solvency behind”, points out who was his coach in Mozambique, where he has been expressing his metamorphosis in European football.
Atlético has opted to galvanize its squad with this incorporation in order to stop the bleeding of goals. He has conceded 26 so far in the league, one more than he received against last year, when he was proclaimed champion. Reinildo is in the top 10 interceptions in Ligue 1, he exceeds the 79% passing accuracy. On the contrary, in the current season he has only scored one goal and has not provided any assistance.
But before the breakdown of statistics, Luis Gonçalves interrupts and launches the following sentence: “It has everything to go right”, a Mozambican expression whose meaning is: “He has what it takes to make this work.” Why? “Because he has never stopped believing and that thought is completely aligned with Atlético and with Simeone. Reinildo is the best example that work generates a strong and winning mentality”.
