Abraham P. Romero Madrid
Madrid
Updated Friday, March 1, 2024-22:35
May 21, 2023.
Mestalla, Valencia
.
Vinicius Júnior
suffers racist insults from the stands and from the game.
"
It's the same as always. They've called me 'monkey' ,"
Bengoetxea
, referee of the match,
tells Ricardo de Burgos.
The Brazilian, after months of insults,
two complaints in the 2021-2022 season
and
six in the 2022-2023
season , explodes against the Spanish football sector that does not stop attacking the color of his skin.
"
Spain is a racist country
," he cries on his social networks, generating a global reaction in his favor.
Nine months later, Vinicius returns to Mestalla this Saturday, a turning point in his
sporting, personal and media career
.
Against Valencia he suffered his first expulsion in
LaLiga
, he exploded against racists at all levels and became the global image of the fight against racism promoted by the representation agency of the
American rapper Jay-Z,
which was joined by the past summer.
Nothing was the same for him and for Spanish football after the
Mestalla
, even causing the shutdown of the
Cristo del Corcovado
in
Rio de Janeiro
.
The nine complaints of racist insults towards the player that accumulated in just a few months in LaLiga and in the courts gave way to the void of this season.
The only embarrassing spots have been the
Montjuic
classic against Barça, where insults to the Brazilian were reported to the
Mossos
, and the racist chants of a group of fans at the doors of the
Metropolitano
before the Madrid derby on January 19.
In the rest of the fields in Spain, the situation has relaxed a bit.
The Brazilian has been injured for a month, but the reception has not been as hostile as in other seasons.
And he has learned to manage it, as he acknowledged during the Spanish Super Cup in Saudi Arabia: "I'm not a saint, sometimes I talk too much, I dribble that I shouldn't, I do things that I shouldn't do, but
I'm here to improve, I want to improve."
"he assured.
He will arrive at Mestalla after regaining form.
He has been Madrid's best against
Girona
(one goal and two assists) and
Sevilla
and in Valdebebas they see him more liberated than ever despite the noise.
Accusations from Valencia
In Valencia, however, the atmosphere remains extremely hostile and the run-up has been totally different from any other match.
Around Mestalla, they accuse Vinicius
of denouncing the entire crowd on social media
and of lying in his statement, something leaked by the defense lawyer, when the reality, according to the transcript to which EFE had access, is that the Brazilian referred only to the insults of the accused and the hostile environment, but
did not generalize
.
This decontextualization caused a statement from Valencia accusing the footballer of
"fallacies and unfounded lies"
and a cover of the newspaper
Superdeporte
calling Vinicius 'Pinochius'.
The latest has been the refusal of Valencia, which in September launched the anti-racism project 'VCF World', to give access to the field to the
Netflix production company
working on a documentary about the forward.
A decision, they say in the club, "
to protect the club
."
The platform cameras had entered other fields in Spain without problem, but in Mestalla they will have to settle for recording the surrounding areas.
Hugo Duro, one of the important players in the Valencian squad, has asked for a hostile but "
football
" environment, although the closeness of the statement before the judge of the three accused of the insults does not lower the revolutions.
On the pitch, a key match for Madrid in its fight for the League.
They lost at Mestalla last season and at Mestalla they must now win to
keep the distance from Girona and Barça
before the second leg of the Champions League round of 16 against Leipzig.
The noise of the Mestalla preview does not penetrate Valdebebas, accustomed to great duels and intense atmospheres.