With just under five months to go before the start of the World Cup, striker Vinicius Junior is experiencing a worrying goal drought with the Real Madrid shirt and raises awareness for Carlo Ancelotti’s Brazilian team.
Consolidated as the main name of the national team —even without great performances with the yellow shirt—, the 25-year-old athlete created from the Flamengo academy has in the 2025/26 season the worst performance of recent years for the Madrid team.
In 27 matches this season with the Real shirt, Vinicius Junior scored just six times, which corresponds to a poor average of just 0.2 goals per match.
It is the club’s worst goal average since the 2020/21 season, when it scored six times in 48 games, an average of 0.12 per match, at a time when it was still looking to establish itself among the starting eleven of the team led by Zinédine Zidane.
The left winger also recently experienced his biggest goal drought playing for Real Madrid in the last five years. He went 16 games — and almost three months — without finding the net, scoring again in the 3-2 defeat to Barcelona, in the final of the Spanish Super Cup, a setback that resulted in the downfall of coach Xabi Alonso.
It was the longest period without scoring since the 2020/21 season, when the drought lasted 24 games.
In addition to the goals, he also dropped in production when it comes to assists for his teammates. He has so far averaged 2.3 passes to goal this season, the lowest —again— since 2020/21, when the average was just 1.3 per game.
The bad phase within the four lines coincides with the arrival of Frenchman Kylian Mbappé, who has already found the net 27 times in 24 matches in the 2025/26 season, averaging 1.1 goals per game, in addition to having distributed four more assists.
In the 2020/21 season, another French striker, Karim Benzema, was the protagonist of the Madrid attack, with 30 goals in 45 matches (average of 0.6), as well as nine assists.
The Brazilian’s best season for Real was in the 2023/24 season, when Benzema had left the club and the center forward position was occupied by the less prestigious Joselu, then on loan from Alavés and now at the modest Al Gharafa, in Qatar.
On that occasion, Vini Jr. was the team’s top scorer in the victorious Champions League campaign, with six goals in ten matches, and the runner-up in the Spanish victory, with 15 goals in 26 matches. The performance earned him FIFA’s The Best award for best player of the season in 2024.
The lack of goals since the middle of last year has also caused consequences off the field. He saw his market value suffer a sharp drop — from R$ 1.35 billion in 2024 to R$ 568 million in 2025, according to CIES (Football Observatory of the International Center for Sports Studies) — losing the position of most valuable Brazilian player in world football to Estêvão, and has been experiencing boos from his own fans.
The Brazilian even changed his profile photo on social media with the Real Madrid shirt to an image with the Brazilian team’s uniform after a victory against Sevilla, at the Santiago Bernabéu. On that occasion, he left the field amid protests from the stands when he was replaced by Gonzalo García.
In the following game, when Real beat Betis 5-1, Vinicius Junior was caught on TV cameras criticizing García — who scored three goals in the match. “Here everyone wants to dribble and then I’m the one who gets booed. Tell Gonzalo that he has to pass once. Not every time, but at least once”, the Brazilian was quoted as saying, according to lip reading done by experts.
Vini Jr. returned to the spotlight once again due to off-field issues in the Spanish Super Cup semi-final clash against Atlético de Madrid, when he had a harsh argument with the opposing coach, Argentine Diego Simeone.
“Florentino [Pérez, presidente do Real Madrid] will send you away. Remember he will send you away. Remember what I’m telling you”, said the coach, who later apologized for his remarks.
With a contract until June 2027, the striker has not yet renewed his contract and has already seen his name being speculated in Saudi football and the Premier League — according to the English media, Chelsea would be preparing an offer of almost R$1 billion to count on his football.
The Brazilian’s coach at Real Madrid for the last four years before taking over the national team, Carlo Ancelotti sought to minimize criticism of the player from fans and part of the media. “Vinicius is a very important player for us, a player who can help us a lot and we have a lot of affection for him,” said the coach in November.
The striker will have a new chance to reverse his bad moment this Saturday (17), when Real Madrid hosts Levante, at 10 am (Brasília time), in a match valid for the 20th round of the Spanish Championship. Real is second in the league table, with 45 points, four behind leaders Barcelona, while Levante is second to bottom, with 14.
