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GUILLERMO Varela has re-joined Penarol after falling out of favour at United.
The 24-year-old featured in Jose Mourinho’s first pre-season game against Wigan last summer but joined Eintracht Frankfurt on a season-long loan a month later.
The right-back endured a miserable time in the Bundesliga – missing eight months of the season through injury – and sat out the German Cup final with an infected tattoo carried out against the club’s wishes.
Varela has spent most of the summer back in his homeland and did not report back for first-team training at Carrington on July 8; the Uruguayan has not featured for the club’s reserves, either, this summer.
United confirmed his departure on their Twitter account on Saturday morning and a source close to the player told M.E.N. Sport: “Guillermo decided to play in Penarol for personal tranquillity.
“The player decided it after how badly he was treated in Frankfurt. His experience in Europe was not good.”
Having got a tattoo ahead of United’s FA Cup final win against Crystal Palace last year, Varela continued the tradition ahead of Frankfurt’s clash with Borussia Dortmund at Berlin’s Olympiastadion in May.
Although club officials had warned him to wait, the 24-yearold went ahead with the first stage of the tattoo of La Catrina, a painted woman’s face and a motif from Mexico’s ‘Day of the Dead’ tradition.
Frankfurt had been contemplating extending his loan, but immediately terminated the deal after the tattoo got infected.
“The most unfair thing is that on the day of the tattoo, it was two Frankfurt players who got a tattoo each,” a source close to the player added. “It is not fair and this news affected the career and personal stability of the player.” Varela was David Moyes’ first signing at United in the summer of 2013, but did not make his firstteam debut until two-and-a-half years later. Following a loan spell under Zinedine Zidane, at Real Madrid Castilla, Louis van Gaal brought the Uruguayan into the fold in December, 2015. Varela went on to make 11 first-team appearances for United and also scored an injury-time winner as the club’s under-21s won the U21 Premier League title. He proved popular with fans online but it was hard to imagine him having a career at Old Trafford at a time when Timothy Fosu-Mensah has impressed at right-back and Joe Riley has come back into the reserves.
Guillermo decided to play in Penarol for personal tranquillity. His experience in Europe was not good