Carlo Ancelotti defends Vinícius Júnior against Real Madrid’s attack against Celta Vigo. (0:44)
Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti said Vinícius Júnior was treated worse on the pitch than any player he has coached throughout his career, as he passionately defended the striker on Saturday.
Vinícius scored Madrid’s only goal in a 1-1 Champions League last-16 draw against RB Leipzig at the Bernabeu on Wednesday, but he was also lucky to get away with just a yellow card for shoving Leipzig captain Willi Orbán.
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Last weekend, the Brazilian striker was booed continuously during Madrid’s 2-2 draw with Valencia at Mestalla, a game in which he also scored two goals, after being subjected to racial slurs by a fan organisation in the same match last season.
“I’ve looked back a little bit, the history, the statistics, and I’ve never seen a persecuted player like Vinícius,” Ancelotti told a news conference on Saturday, Madrid’s La Liga striker who faces Celta Vigo.
“He kicks, whistles, insults him. And what does he do? He scores goals and provides assists. And then I have to tell him his attitude?
“Everyone changes their attitude towards Vinícius. In my personal history, a player with wonderful ability has never suffered the things that Vinicius has suffered. In Vallecas [against Rayo Vallecano], they cut off his head with karate, and “There wasn’t even a yellow card. Now everyone is asking for a red card for the push against Leipzig. “
Vinícius has scored goals in 18 La Liga games this season and 3 in five Champions League matches.
In the Madrid squad, he only got through Jude Bellingham, who will miss the match against Celta after serving a two-match ban for the red card in the confirmed draw against Valencia.
Bellingham was sacked after the final whistle for passionately challenging the referee’s resolve to end play seconds before heading the ball into the net, which would have been the winning goal.
“We appealed because we consider the sanction excessive,” Ancelotti said. There is no insult,” the referee’s report read. [The RFEF Disciplinary Committee] assessed the competitive way in which he approached the referee.
“I hope they don’t have ‘his number. ‘ Bellingham complains like everyone else, but many players do it more over-the-top than Bellingham. We still think the punishment is wrong. “
Madrid’s performance in the second leg against Leipzig has been criticised after being ruled out by the Bundesliga side.
“Before the game I said that maybe a little merit [in the first leg] affected your attention and your intensity,” Ancelotti said. “The team was a bit worried, we played in a low block, we didn’t press. . . We played thinking we had the merit.
“The fact is, I don’t know how to prepare a team for this [situation] because it happened, it happened against Schalke [in the Champions League in 2015], it happened against Chelsea [in 2022]. . . You can “Don’t say ‘don’t think about our track,’ because then you’ll only be thinking about your track. “