Real Madrid left winger Vinicius Junior is the favorite to win the 2024 Ballon d’Or above his highly-rated teammates, and that is precisely because of his ability to rise to the occasion on the grandest stage of them all, the Champions League.
In both of his Champions League triumphs, Vinicius Jr. has been THE standout attacking player on the pitch, creating havoc and bamboozling defenses with his electrifying dribbling.
Although he was once derided for his finishing as a young Real Madrid player, Vinicius Jr. has scored double-digit goals in three different LaLiga seasons, including 15 in under 2,000 minutes last season as apart of a two-man attack after Karim Benzema’s departure to Saudi Arabia.
Vinicius Jr. proved he could lead Real Madrid to a Champions League crown without Benzema’s help, even outshining Rodrygo Goes and fellow Ballon d’Or favorite Jude Bellingham in the Champions League knockouts.
Now, Vinicius Jr. is sharing the spotlight with another Ballon d’Or-caliber attacking superstar in Kylian Mbappe, who has now usurped the Brazilian winger as Real’s highest-paid player.
But Mbappe is playing as a striker and not as a left winger, with Vinicius Jr. keeping his preferred position. Even so, in the early going, Vinicius has been adjusting his game already to help accommodate the French World Cup winner and FIFA cover star.
Vinicius Jr. has always been a strong creator. He was averaging more than a key pass per game for Flamengo as a teenage prospect and has recorded double-digit assists in LaLiga before.
But this season, Vini Jr. seems to be taking his playmaking to another level in order to help Mbappe even more, and if the Brazilian’s goal-scoring numbers do dip this season, hopefully the Ballon d’Or voters take a close look at everything else he will be doing to help Real Madrid’s other forwards get their goals.
Even when Vinicius broke out in the 2021/22 season as a strong supplemental goal-scorer next to star striker Benzema, the best aspects of his game were all creative, whether as a dribbler or passer.
This season, Vinicius Jr. is the undisputed king of chance-creation in LaLiga through four games, averaging an astonishing 3.8 key passes per game with 3.0 dribbles completed and 3.0 fouls drawn per match.
There’s no reason to believe he can’t keep these numbers up, though the key passes will likely regress to a mean closer to his previous career-highs of 1.9. But Vini Jr. will likely significantly exceed those numbers by virtue of his own improvement with experience and his morphed role.
See, Vinicius Jr. is taking the integration of Mbappe seriously. We all saw how he offered his penalty up to the Frenchman in the 2-0 win over Real Betis, which gave Mbappe a brace of goals at the Santiago Bernabeu for his first two as a Real Madrid player.
But Vini Jr. doesn’t just offer gestures. He is legitimately embracing the importance of using the left wing as primarily a drawing point for chance-creation, combining with Mbappe, feeding Mbappe, and even pulling defenders so that Rodrygo has more room on the right side to hold with then cut in to central areas where he is more dangerous – and has less markers.
So in that way, Vinicius Jr. is now accommodating the man who initially unselfishly gave up the left wing for him. But mainly, the 24-year-old ex-Flamengo man is delivering for Mbappe first and foremost as the top scorer.
Mbappe will have to mold his game in the images of two different Real Madrid idols of his, Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema, and this is Vinicius Jr.’s way of being the Benzema to Kylian’s Cristiano.
Kylian will return the favor in a mutually symbiotic relationship, but we all know Vinicius Jr. is the superior player from a dribbling and chance-creation perspective, even though Mbappe is no slouch in either department and will improve further at Real Madrid with much better forwards around him.
As the leader of the attack, it is Vinicius Jr.’s job to be the one to push the envelope more as a creator to help Mbappe get to, say, 30-40 goals, and despite the criticisms of the new pairing, the first four games have actually been a smashing success for Vini if you look beyond the fact that he has just one goal and one assist.
The basic box score stats rarely do players like Vini Jr. justice when they offer so much progression and chaos-creation. As the season proceeds and Mbappe finds his groove, that chaos will yield more goals and more assists for both Vinicius Jr. and all of his Real Madrid teammates.
The managing editor of The Trivela Effect, Kevin has 15 years of experience in digital media. He covered Real Madrid from 2019-2022 for The Real Champs as a site manager. You can contact him at the site’s official Twitter handle @TrivelaEffect or via the site’s official email thetrivelaeffect@gmail.com.