Eight times Vinícius Júnior went to ground at the RCDE Stadium on Saturday night. Eight fouls, a running argument with the home crowd at Cornellà, and a Real Madrid winger who ended the evening with more bruises than moments. Then his manager sat down in front of the microphones and did something no Madrid coach has done quite so bluntly: he called it bullying.
Vinícius Júnior has been the most fouled and most debated forward in LaLiga for three seasons, and for most of that time José Mourinho was on the other bench, complaining about him. Now, nine minutes into his second spell at the club and one league game into the season, the Portuguese has planted himself squarely between the Brazilian and the rest of Spain, after Madrid’s 2-1 win at Espanyol.
What Mourinho said about Vinícius Júnior
Mourinho did not wait to be pushed. Speaking after the game, he acknowledged his own history first: “I run the risk of you going back months to dig up my words from when I was Vini’s opponent, but now Vini is on my team.”
Then came the substance. “He’s no saint, but what they’re doing to him is too much,” Mourinho said. “From the very first minute, it’s as if there’s already a pattern. Now I’ll foul him, now you’ll foul him, one player gets a yellow card, another comes in without one… It’s incredibly frustrating for him; he must have a lot of mental control.”
The line that will travel furthest was the last one. “I’ve even told him that if he scores, he should be careful how he celebrates,” the manager added. “We’re in a social era of anti-bullying, but with Vini, we’re still in the era of bullying.”
It is worth noting what Mourinho did not do. He did not blame the official, and in his formal press conference he went the other way entirely, saying the referee “did a great job” and had given nothing in the box that could decide the game, while adding that he respected the view of Espanyol coach Manolo González. The complaint is about a pattern of tackles, not a conspiracy about one whistle.
Courtois picks up the same fight
Thibaut Courtois, asked about the same controversy, was sharper still. “I’d like to see all the tweets from the teams who play against us,” the goalkeeper told reporters, per Bernabéu Digital. “If we’re talking about that rule, Cala should have been sent off before. First you have to look in the mirror and see what happens with your own players. Every forward goes down when he feels contact. It’s easy to sweep in your own favour.”
Álex Calatrava, the man Courtois names, is the player who scored Espanyol’s equaliser on 29 minutes. Two of the senior figures in the dressing room, in other words, came out of the same match making the same argument about how Vinícius is refereed — and Madrid have not lost their first league game of a season since 2008.
The uncomfortable other half
None of it makes the performance good. Vinícius drew those eight fouls and completed three dribbles, but The Real Champs listed him among the flops, arguing at least half of the fouls were dives, that he created nothing from the left and that he is too isolated out there. That is a criticism Mourinho has already addressed in his own way this summer, having spent pre-season asking Vinícius and Kylian Mbappé for more without the ball.
Both things can be true at once: a forward who is fouled more than anyone in the division, and a forward whose end product on the night was zero. Mourinho’s defence buys him room. It does not buy him form.
What it does tell Madridistas is which side of the argument the new manager will stand on. Vinícius spent last season rebuilding his relationship with parts of the Bernabéu, and begins this one with the loudest coach in Spain speaking for him. On the evidence of Cornellà he will need it — the pattern Mourinho described will not vanish because he named it.
