José Sena Goulão / Lusa
Vinícius Jr. and Prestianni at Real Madrid-Benfica
And it would be worse if Prestianni played in Madrid. In general, the Spanish press believes what Vinícius Jr. said after the first leg.
Real Madrid e Benfica meet again this Wednesday (8pm), in the second leg of the Champions League knockout round. This time in Madrid, at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium – where the environment will be “warmer” than usual.
Last week, Benfica lost at home by . But the subject that dominated the news, analysis and even UEFA’s focus was another: the complaints of Vinícius Jr.
The Real forward claims he was the victim of racism on the part of Gianluca Prestianniwhich will have called “monkey” to the Brazilian international.
José Mourinho criticized Vinícius, the Benfica defended Prestianni – and that heated up the atmosphere even more for the second duel.
Manu de Juan, AS journalist, warns that the environment later, inside the Real Madrid stadium, it will be particularly hostile for the Portuguese team.
“At a certain point, the fans just focused on Prestianni, but the Benfica allied too much to Prestianni, he supported him excessively. It didn’t give much leeway to the possibility of what Vinícius said being true and that could mean that the Bernabéu crowd turns against Benfica“, he analyzed, on the radio.
“But it would be worse if Prestianni were there… the climate would be much hotter”, considers the journalist – the Benfica player is suspended, as is coach José Mourinho.
Manu de Juan comments that the Spanish press, in general, believes what Vinícius says. “It gives us the feeling that there is a lot of evidence that it is true. Prestianni covers his mouth to hide what he is saying, Vinícius’s reaction, in short.”
But people linked to the sport in Spain were even surprised by this suspension: “As there is no evidence, we didn’t expect UEFA to suspend him. It gives the feeling that UEFA didn’t want him to be on the field, so that there wouldn’t be the image of Real Madrid players stretching out their hands to shake him. It suited everyone that he didn’t play, except Benfica.”
