MooX

Mbappe should have stayed wherever he was honestly. That single move is why Vini has finished back to back outside the top 10 of Ballon d’Or. Everyone will always look at the goal output rather than the guy that made things happen. It’s why people think Vini dropped form. Go look at his numbers, nothing changed. His dribbles, key passes, goals, assists, all are in similar numbers, yet people think he dropped form. The problem is that football has become so obsessed with goals that people have forgotten how to evaluate an actual footballer. Vini is still doing the things that made him one of the best players in the world. He is still taking on defenders, creating chances, carrying the ball and putting defenders under pressure. But the dynamics of that Real Madrid attack have changed. Before Mbappe arrived, Vini was the undisputed reference point in that attack. The team understood how to get the best out of him, and everything naturally flowed through his side. Now you have another superstar who needs the ball, needs space. Sometimes the player who scores the goals gets all the recognition, while the player who makes the entire attack function gets overlooked. That’s exactly what is happening with Vinicius.