I don’t know what’s happening to me, but I tend to empathize with Vinicius Jr. much more than what sports rivalry considers advisable, not to mention from a geopolitical point of view, rooted as I am by family ties, both with Argentina and with Sao Paulo. . I like the person relatively well, I am dazzled by the footballer and fascinated by the character. It would remain to analyze, or rate, his role as a pure athlete, you know: everything that has to do with exemplarity, values and other quasi-philosophical arguments, but I am quite lazy and I am not there to give great lessons on the matter, so we will leave it for another day or, perhaps, for later, since we barely went through the introduction and the first paragraph.
Empathy is not fashionable, just take a look around social networks, or any street in the country to see it. And everything that happens around Vinicius Jr. completely lacks the minimum advisable empathic standards. The Brazilian is 24 years old, not 42, the age at which a server was still discussing with his parents the convenience, or not, of holding a job for more than three or four weeks. And this is a factor that seems very important to me before judging his actions so lightly. Is the footballer wrong to fly into a rage and throw a tremendous tantrum when he is informed that he has come second in the voting for the Ballon d’Or? Well, surely yes, but put yourself in their place.
His entire environment has been guaranteeing him laurels for weeks with no more certainty than a matter of first impressions or interests. Nothing else can be expected from the family member: they love him, they idolize him, he is the prince of the house, if not the king. And although the presence of a critical, or dispassionate, figure in each group of coexistence is usually advisable, we should not be surprised by their absence if this is the case, something that we do not know for sure either. Of the media, what can we say: it has been seen so many times on the covers of the main sports newspapers with the happy little ball hanging from its chest that it is strange to imagine any other outcome than that of ordering a display case preventively to display it in the tea room at a few hours after the ceremony concluded. And the professional? Here comes the real blow in the melon, the importance of Real Madrid in all this emotional nonsense.
No one at the Chamartín club seems willing to offer good advice or an alternative vision to a boy who has been working his entire short life to fulfill dreams such as being crowned the best soccer player on the planet. Or if they do, they immediately contradict themselves by raising hell and going on a warpath with everyone because Vinicius Jr. is not recognized for something that Real Madrid itself has fueled in an uncontrolled way, concluding that their wishes are always above the reasons and merits of others.
It could be, as is defended from the most concentric circles of Real Madrid fans, that everything is part of an extensive conspiracy whose sole purpose is to steal glory and carats from Florentino Pérez’s pharaonic project. Or it could be that not, and that the most successful club on the planet, including these last decades of almost hegemonic dominance, has a small problem with defeats, both minor and major. Knowing how to lose is part of life, and, therefore, of sport, something that Vinicius Jr. still has time to learn. Who is already late is Real Madrid.
