2024 was billed as the Year of the Dragon in the Chinese horoscope, but it was definitely the Year of Pajarito. and for a variety of reasons.
In his final game of 2024, Federico Valverde recorded another goal in a 4-2 victory, formally ending the year.
According to statistics, this was the Uruguayan midfielder’s 68th game since January, meaning he has played once every five days on average. This suggests Valverde has played virtually every week since the start of this almost-over 2024.
He participated in the qualifiers, the Copa América, and a friendly with Real Madrid. He was a key player in many of the team’s games in La Liga, the UEFA Champions League, the UEFA Super Cup, the Intercontinental Cup, and the Supercopa de España.
The demand on Valverde is not surprising; a few months ago, the Professional Footballers’ Guild even quoted him as saying that, when looking at the season rather than the calendar year, he could play close to 80 games.
Due to his significance in the team and his fitness, which is demonstrated by the minutes he plays in almost every club and national games, Valverde is rarely left out of Carlo Ancelotti’s starting lineup.
Federico Valverde finished 2024 with 5,753 minutes overall, averaging 85 minutes per game, making him the second-most-played player in the world, according to a statistic released by the International Centre for Sports Studies (CIES). This ranking highlights the magnitude of Valverde’s performance. Jules Koundé of Barcelona, France, is the only player who finished with more minutes than him (6,052).
Valverde is a valuable asset to the coach because of his versatility, which enables him to play a variety of positions on the field.
“I’m delighted because Valverde has everything a top-level midfielder needs; he has tactical intelligence, strength, quality, he’s a spectacular player,” Ancelotti said in 2017.
“Valverde has a very high level; despite his shyness in the past, he is now assuming greater responsibilities in the locker room. He underlined, “I see a very significant player who improves every day, not a bashful player. In fact, Valverde’s confidence boost gave him the chance to start as Real Madrid’s captain for the first time this season in an official match”.
Pajarito, who also donned the captain’s armband for the Uruguayan national team, made the honor far more commonplace and even repeated it when the main captains weren’t available.
If that wasn’t enough, Valverde also left his mark in one of football’s most crucial areas: scoring goals.
The timidity Ancelotti mentioned vanished on the field as Valverde became more confident, leading to a successful season; he finished 2024 as the second most prolific scorer of his career, one goal short of his career high.
After scoring twice in a row in 2023 and 2024, Valverde scored nine goals in 2024, a year that allowed him to rejoice with La Celeste several times. In 2022, he scored ten goals between Real Madrid and Uruguay.
Federico Valverde’s wheel will revolve once more on January 3. Although he will begin the new year without any games, minutes, or goals, he still has the ability to build on his stellar 2024 stats.
As is well known, Carlo Ancelotti started to “push” Federico Valverde to take more shots and score more goals, just like Zinedine Zidane did before him.
The Italian said, “I’ll have to rip up my license and retire if you can’t score at least ten goals in a season,” and Pajarito did. However, he hasn’t stopped there; he has begun to acquire confidence.
In addition to his physical prowess on the field, Valverde’s striking is another important quality. The fact that two teammates move to allow the Uruguayan to fire on goal in one of Real Madrid’s set-piece situations this season is no accident.
Of the 38 goals Valverde has scored for Real Madrid and the Uruguayan national team thus far in his career, 21 (or 55%) have come from outside the box.
His performance in the most recent game against Sevilla makes it very evident that it was no accident; in fact, he had scored similarly against Rayo Vallecano only a few days earlier. His past six goals really came from outside the area.
With half of the La Liga season left, Pajarito still has a chance to surpass Lionel Messi’s record of eight long-range goals from the 2020–21 campaign, which he is aiming for with yesterday’s fifth long-range goal of the current campaign.
Opta also claims that with those five goals, he is the man who has scored the most goals from a distance this season in all five of Europe’s top leagues.
In addition to 13 of the 27 goals he has scored with the first team and six of the eight he has scored with the national team, two of his three goals with Real Madrid Castilla were from outside the box.
As Federico Valverde was nominated for the two most coveted individual awards, 2024 was also the year he once again mingled with the elite. Not only did Pajarito place 17th in France Football’s Ballon d’Or, but he was also included in the shortlist of contenders for FIFA’s Best award, which honors the season’s top player. In this later prize, he came in at number eleven, with notable votes from Simón Elissetche (Chilean, Timor-Leste coach), José María Giménez, and Quinto Griffith (Captain of Antigua and Barbuda).
He has won five of the 15 titles he has won in his career thus far, including La Liga, the Supercopa de España, and others, since January.
Like in the 2017 U-20 World Cup with Uruguay and the 2022 Club World Cup with Madrid, he won the Golden Ball for his performance in the Intercontinental Cup as the tournament’s second-best player.
