Vinícius’ journey to stardom: Football, FIFA and sleep. How did he decide where to move to?

This summer’s change on the Real Madrid coaching bench has brought one big emerging star to football. Vinícius Junior had huge potential, but it was only under Carlo Ancelotti that he unlocked it fully.

Real Madrid – Sevilla, 86th minute of the match for the top of the table, the score is 1:1. Milito’s cross is expertly worked onto the chest of Vinícius, who flips over the defending teammate. He takes the ball to the middle, fires and with a shot to the crossbar he scores three extremely important points for the White Ballet.

That’s Vinícius Junior this year. Last season he was laughed at, because his finishing was really poor. The young Brazilian was very reckless, sometimes he managed to throw away incomprehensible chances, his numbers were very bad.

But this year there was a rebirth. Vini already has 11 goals and 5 assists, his best league record so far is 3+3. He’s playing in incredible form, tearing apart opposing defences, reminding Los Blancos fans of Cristiano Ronaldo in his prime.

But how did the young Brazilian get to the top? Let’s take a look at it together.

Vinícius José Paixão de Oliveira Júnior was born on 12 July 2000 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. His parents, Vinicius José Paixão de Oliveira and Tatiana Vinicius, had two other sons and one daughter. The modest family did not have much money to spend, and uncle Ulysses often had to help out financially to make sure everyone had enough to eat.

As a child, Vinicius was very quiet, described by his childhood friends as someone who was always playing video games or on his cell phone. Of course, the virtual game was joined by football in the street, as is quite common in Brazil.

“I played football with my friends on the street all day long. The only reasons I went home were to play football, eat and sleep,” Vinícius recalls of his childhood.

Vinícius’ first football steps led to Saa Goncala, a suburb of Rio de Janeiro. Sao Goncalo is at the heart of Brazil’s evangelical revolution, and the contaminated waters of the Guanabara Bay lead there. Only indigenous people from poor family backgrounds live in this area.

Vinícius then fell in love with Robinho. He saw him perform a trick in Brazil called “chapeau”, where a footballer swings his toe over his opponent. As a result, Vini started playing futsal and everywhere he saw Robinho as his biggest idol. At the age of seven, his parents enrolled him in the futsal club Canto do Rio in the south of San Goncalo.

However, the futsal training ground was quite a detour from Rio de Janeiro. At first, his parents could afford to pay for Vini’s travel, but later the funds ran out. So the young Brazilian had to stay with his uncle in São Paulo, which was much closer to the pitch.

In the futsal team, Vini immediately began to shine and became the best of the year. So when he was 9 years old, his parents took him to the Flamengo academy for a tryout, hoping that the little futsal player would become a full-fledged academy player.

Flamengo saw potential in him, but told him to come back when he was older. Vinícius was disappointed and wanted to give up football and return to futsal. But his parents convinced him to hang on and wait for his chance.

A year later, in August 2010, Vinícius took another trial at Flamengo and this time he was accepted. He quickly acclimatised to life in the academy and gradually began to turn the wheels of his big dream.

Very soon all his teammates and coaches realized that they had a real gem in their academy. In 2017, when Vini was still 16 years old, he made his Flamengo debut.

ESPN FC commentator Tim Vickery even joked that he was still too young. ” On his debut, Vinícius looked like a ball feeder who ran onto the pitch when no one was looking,” Vickery laughed.

But the young Brazilian immediately made it clear that he did not come to Flamengo Stadium to pass balls, but to referee matches. Just 2 days after his debut, Flamengo signed a new contract with Vini and raised the buyout clause to 45 million euros. The management made this decision as some teams from Europe were already circling the 16-year-old quite strongly.

Manchester United were the first to get in touch, enquiring about the availability of Vinícius. However, Red Devils boss Ed Woodward was not very successful in the negotiations and everything quickly fell apart.

By May 2017, Vinícius had captivated the entire Brazil squad. He led Brazil to a gold medal at the South American Under-17 Championship, netting 7 goals in the tournament. He became the tournament’s top scorer, while also earning the award for best player of the tournament.

After this tournament, Vinícius was immediately on the radar of all the world’s big clubs. However, they began to complain about the high price tag for Vinícius, which was 45 million euros. According to scouts, this was a teenager who had barely kicked a ball at the professional level and the amount was exorbitant.

However, there were two clubs who were willing to pay that amount. Two of the biggest in the world, Real Madrid and Barcelona. There was even speculation that Vinícius was being persuaded to move to Barcelona by his star compatriot Neymar. So the choice was up to Vinícius.

And as Vinicius’ agent later declassified the conversation, the young Brazilian was clear. “Real mate. We are going to the biggest in the world,” Vinícius announced to his agent via Whatsapp where he wanted to move.

Florentino Pérez has thus put €46 million on the table, with the proviso that he will keep Vinícius at Flamengo until June 2018. The Rio de Janeiro native has thus become the most expensive player under 18 and is currently rocking at the highest level. And as they say, the rest is history…

Source:: Lifebogger, Livesport