If Norway’s man-giant Erling Haaland is arguably the best out-and-out goal-machine striker in the world, Brazil’s little left wing Vinícius Júnior may be the best all-round attacker — though he is still building up his consistency. At 25, the Real Madrid star is still approaching his peak as a player too.
As Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi fade off the stage, Brazil’s 2024 Best Fifa Men’s Player and France’s 2025 winner, Ousmane Dembele, Vinícius’s rival for world’s most complete attacker, are taking up the mantle, with another Frenchman, Kylian Mbappé, lurking.
Spain and Barcelona’s 18-year-old Lamine Yamal might be set to eclipse them all. The four will be out to be compete for the World Cup’s and world’s best player mantle at the tournament in North America.
From working-class São Gonçalo in Rio de Janeiro, Vinícius is not from a poor background but his family did struggle and he encountered crime and danger in his youth. He played for a development branch of Flamengo in five-a-side, small, hard-court Futsal from age six in 2006, graduating to the club’s youth structures at 10, in 2010.
Vinícius grabbed global attention making his senior debut at 16 in 2016, and weeks later concluded a £38m (R837m) deal to join Real Madrid, though played 42 Campeonato Brasileiro Série A games (seven goals), and more in other competitions before the move to Spain at 18 in July 2018.
Vinícius played just five games for Real Madrid Castilla (the lower league B team) before moving up permanently to the senior team in September 2018, two months after arriving in Madrid.
Initially he was decidedly raw and would show only glimpses of brilliance.
Legendary Italian manager Carlo Ancelotti, arriving for his second stint at Real from 2021, is credited with transforming Vinícius into the world-class left-wing he is today, with the player’s major breakthrough season in 2021-22.
He scored 22 times with 16 assists helping Madrid to the double of LaLiga and the Champions League, where he scored the winning goal against Liverpool in the final. His 24 goals and 11 assists in 2023-24 helped earn another league and Champions League double and Fifa’s best player award.
Internationally, Vinícius was mostly an impact player off the bench as Brazil finished runners-up as hosts of the 2021 Copa America and could not help the Seleção past the quarters in his lone World Cup in Qatar in 2022.
Brazil fans will be most pleased Ancelotti has become their national coach due to his relationship with Vinícius. They hope the Italian can take a dangerous combination all the way from Group C to the trophy, to heal the hurt of a decade of underachievement that included the 7-1 home semifinal humiliation by Germany in 2014 and quarterfinal exits in 2018 and 2022.
If Brazil do that, Vinícius is sure to have been the cornerstone of it.
- Age: 25
- Club: Real Madrid
- Previous clubs: Flamengo
- Previous World Cups: 2022 (quarterfinals)
- International caps (goals): 47 (8)
- Club honours: Real Madrid: La Liga (3) 2019–20, 2021–22, 2023–24; Copa del Rey (1) 2022–23; Supercopa de España (3) 2020, 2022, 2024; Uefa Champions League (2) 2021–22, 2023–24; Uefa Super Cup: (2) 2022, 2024; Fifa Club World Cup (2) 2018, 2022; Fifa Intercontinental Cup (1) 2024
- International honours: Copa América (runner-up) 2021
• TimesLIVE, Sowetan, The Herald and Daily Dispatch will run a series profiling the STARS OF THE 2026 WORLD CUP every Friday until the tournament kickoff on June 11. There will be a GROUP PROFILE every Tuesday. (This profile appears on Thursday because May 1 is a public holiday.)
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