Only Thibaut Courtois, man of the match in Paris, played more competition minutes for the winners than Vinícius. No-one else except those two men started every Champions League match for Los Blancos en route to victory. Across those 13 Champions League matches, Vini Jr played 300 minutes more than either Casemiro or Toni Kroos (the equivalent of more than three full games). When Madrid stumbled, briefly, against Sheriff in the group stage it was the young Brazilian who, explosively, put them back on track away to Shakhtar with two goals and an assist.
But look at the rollercoaster knockout rounds. Look at the nights when Los Blancos toyed with our emotions and our nerves, consistently serving up cliffhanger drama en route to the final. This kid, in a tight trio with Benzema and Rodrygo, decided that nothing and no one was going to prevent Real Madrid having a tilt at their 14th European Cup lift.
While Ancelotti’s team flirted with elimination against Paris, Chelsea and Manchester City, Vini Jr produced three assists and a goal across six gigantically pressurised matches. Cometh the hour (or the 91st minute), cometh a quite brilliant Brazilian.
He’s got a clear definition of what was going on while the jaws of those involved with European football repeatedly went slack with awe and disbelief between February and May last season. And he can describe it. “Winning the final was magical, the moment that we had been hoping for since the round of 16. Every single game was, in itself, like a final. That’s because we were wearing the most important shirt in the world, playing in the most important competition in the world and playing at the one place in the world – the Santiago Bernabeú stadium – where we can be at home with our fans.
The fact that we produced so many comebacks, that’s just in the DNA of this club and our shirt
“The fact that we showed so much spirit and produced so many comebacks… well, that’s just in the DNA of this club and our shirt. You must always turn up in important games. We have a squad of players who know how to approach games in this competition. I believe our success owed a bit to everything; some of our games were emotional rollercoasters, yes – but we won in the end.”
Apart from the ecstasy of the final there’s one crucial moment amid that torrent of never-say-die remontadas, as those improbable fightbacks are known in Spain, which sparks a trademark toothy grin from this prodigious talent. “It’s the game against Manchester City here at the Bernabeú. Across just two minutes after Rodrygo came on he produced a couple of vital goals that took us to the final. So aside from Paris, the most important moment of the competition, I believe, was beating City in Madrid.”
This is a hard-headed, ambitious, dedicated pro that we are talking to. Someone who is dead set on emulating team-mates such as Benzema, Modrić, Kroos and Casemiro, who have multiple Champions League medals. Which doesn’t mean that Brazilian sentiment, or the power of friendship, have been discarded. Far from it. That sensational rescue act against City was produced by someone who Vini Jr holds dear. “Rodrygo and I have been very good friends since just after leaving Brazil. The fact is that we’ve known each other since I was 13 years old, because we were perpetually playing against each other for our teams back home.
“But while we were opponents, we always had this strong wish that, eventually, we’d be team-mates – partly because we both prefer to play with the best. Now that we are together at Madrid I have a great bond with him, with all his family and his friends. People always say that we spend more time together than with our own families! When we prepare for games, we’re together. When we train, we’re together. And when we go on holiday we’re always together too. But friendships like these are very influential on the pitch.”
Friends since their early teens and now both increasingly important in their first-team presence. Plus, potential World Cup winners later this year for the Pentacampeão: Brazil. But for a while that cascade of opinions that surrounds top-level football, reaching blizzard proportions when it comes to 14-times European champions Real Madrid, had each of them pigeonholed. And, frankly, wrongly.
