When Vinicius talks to his people about his lack of control in some games, frustrated with the referees, with some defenses, with rival fans, he remembers what happened to him one recent afternoon away from home. Before starting, the referee warned him: if he did something, he would turn the public against him.
The people who work closely with the Brazilian are always insistent that he needs to find a way to better control his despair and not leave games. They know what the opponents are trying to do by all means, as several defenses have publicly acknowledged. Tonight he visits the Camp Nou, the most hostile of scenarios in the thorniest of circumstances, with both clubs one step away from the courts for the Negreira case.
His teammates also see a certain helplessness in the striker. The last, Rüdiger, who pointed out the complexity of the situation: “It’s 50-50. He has to focus on his way of playing, because when he does, he is one of the best. But it’s also difficult when they kick you so much and provoke you so much. The referees have to do a better job”.
Vinicius believes that matches away from the Bernabéu will begin to be played against him very soon, according to sources close to him. From the previous interviews. Also during the preliminaries already in the stadium. In Mallorca, the public, between insult and insult, celebrated each of his failures in the warm-up. At Benito Villamarín, two days ago, he also warmed up under constant insults.
When the ball begins to move, Vinicius has already been shaken by the environment. With the game underway, the Brazilian feels unprotected. In Mallorca, the referee called ten fouls on him, the most received by a player in the League in five years. He is the most kicked footballer in Europe: he has received 92 fouls. But his desperation has also placed him as the tenth most targeted in the League, with eight yellow cards.
Last Saturday at the Bernabéu they reprimanded him after half an hour and he was about to explode. He fell back onto the grass, desperate, but he regained control, and Ancelotti praised him: “I found his attitude very exemplary. He hasn’t protested, he hasn’t said anything and he has played very well. He has to keep it up.”
The Brazilian left similar reflections: “With me, the referees don’t whistle, they don’t card the others, but whenever I make the first foul they card me. But that’s what there is. I have to try to improve, try to have a calm head to play and help my friends, ”he said. His friends have seen the disturbing effect of storms on the Brazilian. Vinicius has not scored away from home in the League since August 28 last year, against Espanyol at the RCDE Stadium, just five kilometers from tonight’s volcanic Camp Nou.
The situation is very different in Europe. Not only because Vinicius scored twice in the last outing, the visit to Anfield. Also because of the different consideration that the hardness of the defenses and the hostility of the stands receive there. Klopp was perplexed that the striker’s game could justify the attacks: “What if he does something on the pitch that could cost him what kind of things? Racists?” he wondered. “There is nothing in the world that can justify that. It doesn’t matter what he does on the pitch.”
In Spain he has not received unqualified endorsements from rivals. The messages are similar to that of Ruibal from Betic at Villamarín: “It’s his game, it’s normal. He has to deal with getting kicked, because he tries to dribble a lot. He gets into the game a lot with the fans. He’s talking to them all the time. It’s normal for them to insult you.”
The ones that hurt him the most are the racists, according to his environment. Days after playing against Betis, LaLiga denounced that it had also happened there. It was the seventh complaint for racist attacks on Vini. There is no other footballer with so many. His people believe that hostility worsened when before the World Cup he denounced racism in Spain in a video. They want to silence him, they say.
In a lit Camp Nou, the teams will pose tonight behind the poster of a LaLiga campaign against racism, in whose video Madrid did not participate.
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