“Vinicius? At nine years old you looked at him and saw that there was no other way out”
vinicius arrived in 2018 at Real Madrid and now the Brazilian winger is one of the most important players in the squad. But everything could have been different if United had not slackened in 2015. At that time, at the age of 14, the battle to win the young pearl began and the first to position himself was the Manchester United. That’s how he told it Carlos Novalmanager of transition and signings of the Flamengo. vinicius It was already attracting attention then and the Flamengo leader recounts what happened on ESPN Brazil. “A foreign headhunter from the Manchester United He came to see him and told me: ‘Noval, look at the player you have, he’s a gem! I’ve never seen a 14-year-old player do what he does.’ That reinforced everything we already had in mind about him. It was a gem to be polished. Everybody wanted Vinicius,” Noval affirms. “Corinthians didn’t talk to us because they didn’t have the slightest chance of him leaving with them… Barcelona, in particular, kept an eye on this boy since he was 13 years old. Real Madrid and most of the big European clubs too. We had more contact, they came to talk to us, but Vini was able to leave the country at the age of 18. The European clubs really wanted to know what the family is like, the representatives and what it was like off the field”, explains Noval. Madrid put all the meat on the grill and United were surprised. “He entered the locker room, hugged me and he yelled like a demon: ‘Noval, I can’t do anything. I have to go,” he explains that Vinicius told him. The leader had been clear for years. “He was very different. Perhaps he was the only player that at the age of nine you looked at and knew that there was no way out for him, he had guaranteed success. The team he played for was very good and talented, but Vini already stood out. We said: ‘This is going to be a star, you have to take it seriously and put up with the work well,’ he recalls.
