Vinicius Jr had the last laugh over Manchester City fans after Real Madrid’s thrilling Champions League comeback.
City appeared to be answerable for the primary leg of Tuesday’s play-off on the Etihad but goals from Brahim Diaz and Jude Bellingham saw Los Blancos draw first blood ahead of the second leg in Madrid next week, sealing a 3–2 win.
City fans revelled in taunting Vinicius throughout the competition. The Brazil international was expected to scoop the Ballon d’Or award last 12 months only to be pipped by City star Rodri.
Real Madrid and Vinicius responded by furiously boycotting the awards ceremony in protest.
Reminding Vinicius of Rodri’s triumph, City fans unfurled an Oasis-inspired banner of the Spain international clutching the award together with the message: ‘Stop crying your heart out’.
The 24-year-old was on the centre of Real’s dramatic fightback, nonetheless, providing the assist for Bellingham’s winner, also scooping the person of the match award
With City targeting him with chants of ‘where’s your Ballon d’Or?’, Vinicius casually identified the badge representing Real’s 15 Champions League successes on his left shoulder, having won two of them himself.
To rub further salt in the injuries, Vinicius reminded City fans to ‘know our history’ when quizzed on the eye he received post-match.
‘I see it, but every time the opposing fans do things, they provide me more strength to play an incredible game and I did that here,’ Vinicius told Movistar.
‘They know our history, every part we do on this competition. It’s the fifth time we’ve come, it’s all the time very cold and now we have to proceed along this line.’
He added: ‘It wasn’t bad, I used to be in a position to play an incredible game, we defended thoroughly and it doesn’t matter who scores goals or is the MVP, we’re here to do great things for this shirt and put Madrid in the very best place.
‘There remains to be numerous game left within the return leg, now we have to defend as we did today and have our fans with us to make it a magical night.’
Real can book their place within the last 16 of the Champions League next week with the return leg going down on the Bernabeu next Wednesday.
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