Vinicius Jr. finally has an award in line with his own expectations, an individual award that complements the many collective titles chained with Real Madrid – to The Best, the Brazilian added the last title last night, against Pachuca in Doha, with a pass to Mbappé and penalty goal included—and appease, at least for the moment, his excessive obsession with this type of recognition. Next week, when you wake up on any given weekday and go hungry to the kitchen in search of yogurt, turkey breast or whatever an elite soccer player keeps in the fridge, you will discover, the electric Brazilian tightrope walker, that life goes on. Just the same, that you will continue to feel the same love from the same people and that nothing matters enough to dedicate even the hours of sleep to it, including that horrible trophy that seems to attract dust like a deception on the side and may not even fit with the decoration entire living room.
Vinicius Jr. will have the right to celebrate it as he pleases, the only thing missing is that he would have to ask the authority for permission to dress up, post a Facebook message on Instagram and collect all the pieces he considers, including those of that supposed media persecution that he seems to feel and that so many people, outraged by his position, are determined once again to demonstrate. “They will try and try to invalidate me, diminish me,” says the Brazilian in his statement. “But they are not prepared.” The subsequent reactions of people who call themselves mature are not far behind, which is why one ends up thinking at what exact point in this game Vinicius Jr. may be right and at what specific point we will have to give it to him.
Living in someone else’s shoes is a structural defect in these times, especially when we all believe in the need, almost the obligation, to tell our truth. We sit in front of the television, watching a football match, and in no time we are able to award medals, apply punishments and decide who has the right to live their profession as they want and who does not, often depending on the colors the player wears. young guy. Vinicius Jr., for example, has always been denied the possibility of showing himself as he is, of self-immolating a hundred times in each game and resurrecting a hundred and one, of getting tangled up with the defenders’ provocations and treating the referee like those teenagers. angry people who leave the house slamming the door, pointing fingers at racists and driving that kind of autonomous eyebrow that lives on Ancelotti’s forehead crazy. Then something disconcerting happens: everyone finds a reason to talk about a new short circuit rather than their last dribble.
To me, who adored Hristo Stoichkov as if he were a alter ego of my father, it is difficult for me to find in Vinicius Jr. that unbearable point that pushes me to invalidate him as a footballer, let alone as a person. I saw the Bulgarian commit so many outrages that some nights I woke up with cold sweats and the sincere intention of asking for forgiveness from the family of Urízar Azpitarte, the referee who Hristo stomped on. “The worst thing is that this anti-Hristo campaign has turned him into a terrorist in the eyes of almost all fans,” Cruyff excused him, pointing in all directions. And, of course, I believed him. And I cursed everyone who was not able to see in my idol the abused footballer who was born in communist Bulgaria and learned his trade by kicking socks. Let’s see if what bothers us about Vinicius Jr. is that, as a child, in the Sao Gonçalo favela, they gave him a ball and, on top of that, he complains.
