Real Madrid were angry that Vinícius Júnior missed out but crowning the Spain midfielder marks a shift in thinking
Real Madrid were angry that Vinícius Júnior missed out but crowning the Spain midfielder marks a shift in thinking
Even in the Théâtre du Châtelet, when George Weah opened the envelope and started to say “The winner is …”, there were shouts of “Vinícius!” There had been some whistles when Rodri arrived. It was all a bit grubby, a little sad, as if he had done something dreadful and not just played football really, really well, but he rose above it, his speech as generous, clear and understated as his play.
“It’s not a victory for me but for Spanish football,” Rodri said, repeatedly referring to “my country”. He mentioned other players who could, maybe should, have won this and one he said will in the future, all of them Spanish. This was for them. Xavi Hernández, Andrés Iniesta, Iker Casillas and Sergio Busquets. Then Dani Carvajal, who had sustained the same knee injury and who, he said, would have deserved to be on the stage.
He’s always been like that, a natural, although he told a story at Monday’s gala about how one day when he was 17 he was ready to give it all up; he had dedicated his life to football but he felt it disintegrating, his dad convincing him to continue. “It’s true I found it easy to understand , to read the game,” he has said. “When a team was successful, I could see why, how they created space: ‘This player’s going to do this, that player will do that.’” He listened too.
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