Brazilian star Vinicius Junior, consecrated as the second best in the world in last year’s Golden Ball, fell this year to 16th place in the awards – the most traditional of world football since it was instituted by France Football magazine in 1956. Appearing on the world’s top 20 list is no little, but the loss of 14 positions in the ranking reflects the current status of Vini Jr.
The Brazilian is no longer the main star of Real Madrid. At least since the first half of 2023, the merengue club dreamed of hiring Frenchman Kylian Mbappé. At the time the deal did not come to fruition – and the following season 2023/24, Vinicius became the team’s star, consecrated by the exhibitions at Champions League and the highlight in the anti -racist struggle.
Mbappé, however, went to Real Madrid in June 2024 and soon stole from the Brazilian the team’s primacy of the team, as he had previously done with Neymar on PSG. Last season, 2024/25, Vinicius kept his level of goals, but the Frenchman scored 44 twice. As a reward, Mbappé has just inherited Luka Modric’s shirt 10, a Madrid legend with six Champions League in the curriculum.
The Brazilian contract with the Spanish team ends in June 2027, and Vinicius has been finding it difficult to extend the bond by 2030 – which generates rumors that he was leaving the club.
But the season preceding the 2026 World Cup also brings challenges to the Brazilian on the field. He started this year’s first Champions League game against Oiympique Marseille on the reserve bench. In the Spanish Championship has been recurrently replaced in the second half of the games.
On Saturday (20), television showed the striker’s discontent when he was pulled out of the field in the match against Espanyol in the Santiago Bernabéu. In a report on the subject, the American newspaper The New York Times has teased relationship problems between Vinicius Jr and the new Real Madrid coach, Spanish Xabi Alonso, hired earlier this season.
For Portuguese António Veloso, creator of a postgraduate degree in high performance football at the University of Lisbon, the issue is more complex. “With Carlo Ancelotti, Real Madrid had the counterattack as one of his main weapons, enhanced by the accurate releases by Toni Kroos and Luka Modric for a Vini Jr. Veloz and dribbling. The team thus played for him,” says Veloso, a European football expert.
A year passed, German Kroos abandoned football, Croatian Modric moved to Milan, and the team started playing for Mbappé. “Unlike Ancelotti, Xabi Alonso prefers to play the Spanish way, with a lot of possession and marking the entire field,” says Veloso. “In this scheme the team cannot afford to have two players who do not like to score. These are the cases of Mbappé and Vini Jr, who still prefer to play in the same sector, on the left, which makes a challenge climb them at the same time.”
Despite the difficulties, the Brazilian striker continues to make good matches for Real Madrid, even showing rapport with the star of the French team. In Saturday’s game against Espanyol, he assisted Mbappé’s goal and hit a ball in the post. In a match against Levante, on Tuesday (23), he played as the right end and, outside his position, held a prodigy of geometry by framing the ball out of reach of the goalkeeper in a minimum space among the opposing defenders.
This Saturday (27), to be able to have one more chance to shine. Real Madrid make classic against Atletico Madrid.
In the last Champions League, the two teams faced each other in the round of 16, and the match was only decided on penalties. For Vinicius Jr the rivalry gains dramatic contours. It was in a game against rival Madrid in 2022 that racist attacks against the Brazilian star began. The following year, the Colchonera fans hung a doll with the Brazilian shirt on a bridge in Madrid, in a racist offense that led to a lawsuit, banning a piece of the metropolitan stadium and punishment against fans by the club itself.
Since emerging as one of the main European clubs in the 1950s, Real Madrid is notable for hiring great players, but not always cohabitation between glowing stars is possible.
It was like this during the reign of Argentine Di Stefano, who could not live with Brazilian Didi. Similarly, the brightness of Portuguese Cristiano Ronaldo, recently chosen as the greatest European player of all time, eventually overshadowed the Welsh Gareth Bale, then the most expensive hiring in the club’s history.
Coach Xabi Alonso arrived at Real Madrid with the mission of recovering hegemony in Spain and Europe, against a Barcelona that has two top 5 Golden Ball players, Lamine Yamal and Raphinha, and the PSG and Liverpool Superimins, holders respectively from Champions League and Premier League, the main crowns of club football.
It may be difficult to make Kylian Mbappé and Vinicius Jr’s egos and talents, but it would certainly be a big step to replace Real Madrid on the way to the main titles.
