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Jonathan Varane’s 2026 didn’t get off to the best start. Four days into the new year, the QPR midfielder sprained a knee during a 3-0 win over Sheffield Wednesday and was a frustrated spectator for more than a month.
Varane had been desperate to play his part, with QPR hoping to push for the playoffs, but the 24-year-old took the opportunity to indulge in two of his other passions: reading and history. That included a trip with his teammate Paul Nardi to the British Museum, where the ancient Egyptian artefacts proved of particular fascination.
“It’s interesting to know a little bit about the history of the world,” Varane says. “The British Museum is really rich in history. Football is not all of my life. Of course, I like playing football. It’s a big part of my life, but it’s not everything. When you’re injured, if football is your whole life, you can be depressed. I’m feeling good because I think it happened for a reason. I try to do other things … I like reading. I’m really curious. During this time, I could do other things.”
When the weather permits, Varane has also been exploring his adopted home of Windsor, even if he has yet to go inside the castle. “I was walking around a lot of times with my family,” he says. “I like it because it’s more peaceful. I have my peace there. A lot of nature.”
Given Varane’s importance to Julian Stéphan’s exciting young team, QPR supporters will be delighted to hear he is enjoying life in England since joining from the Spanish club Sporting Gijón in August 2024. The west London club are understood to have rejected offers from Spanish and French sides for the imposing midfielder after rewarding him with a new contract following his first season.
Varane has cemented his popularity with a promising start under Stéphan, who coached Ousmane Dembélé, Eduardo Camavinga, Jérémy Doku and Désiré Doué as a youth coach and manager of Rennes before replacing Martí Cifuentes at Loftus Road last summer. QPR, 15th, 18th and 20th in the past three campaigns, had been on the fringes of the playoffs despite having one of the Championship’s youngest squads until three defeats from their past four matches set them back. They host second-placed Middlesbrough on Sunday.
“We are more together [than last year],” Varane says. “It’s another mindset. A lot of players are young and have a good mentality so it’s been easier to adapt. We started well this year and we’re in a position that means we can compete now. We’re happy to be here.”
Varane started as a winger in the Lens academy as an eight-year-old but was converted to central midfield because a coach recognised he could be useful in a deeper role. “I was really aggressive – I had a lot of anger – and they saw that,” he says. “I like it because when you’re in the centre of the field, you can control the game, you can recoup a lot of balls. When I came to England, everything was new so I needed to learn and adapt. Now, with experience, I know my role better.”
He is benefiting from summer training in Martinique, the Caribbean island that his father comes from and that Varane has represented on the international stage since 2024. As a video on his Instagram account showed, that involved racing his cousin up a steep hill near the family home.
“We are really competitive,” he says with a laugh. “We both really want to win this race. [Martinique] is like my safe place. I have my family there, my friends. Because of the weather and everything, it’s where I come from. I really enjoy my time when I go there.”
Varane’s half-brother Raphaël, a central defender who won the 2018 World Cup with France and played for Manchester United, also began at Lens before joining Real Madrid as a teenager. Jonathan has become used to the comparisons, even if they have different mothers and grew up in separate homes.
“I know when I need advice, I can call him and everything, but we’re not that close,” he says. “We both started at Lens, he worked in Spain, I worked in Spain, now I’m in England, he was in England. We have a lot of similarities, but I just try to write my own stories.”
