Champions League | Real Madrid with the suspended Vinícius Júnior against RB Leipzig

Too fast for the Leipzig team: Vinícius Júnior (r.) meets the Rasenball athletes again with Real after two and a half years. Photo: imago/Burak Akbulut It is known that Vinícius Júnior is, firstly, very good with the ball, which is why, secondly, he is often subjected to very unpleasant hostility from the opposing audience, including racist ones. Thirdly, it is also true that the Real Madrid attacker is not always innocent of the turbulence surrounding him, with all sorts of swallows, provocations and indecencies, including fistfights.

Just recently, in everyday league action against FC Villarreal, the Brazilian's hand got lost in the hair of an opponent. This earned him the disallowance of a goal he had just scored, as well as a red card and a four-game ban. The Clásico on Sunday at FC Barcelona will take place without perhaps the best striker in the Spanish league. Nothing much worse could happen to a professional working for the Whites.

Previously simply the national champions' cup, today the Champions League: a staged spectacle and football's money-printing machine. Sven Goldmann looks ahead to the upcoming match day.

It's a good thing that the European football circus cares little about the jurisdiction of the Spanish league. On Wednesday, Real will play Rasenballsport Leipzig – with Vinícius José Paixão de Oliveira Júnior, whom everyone in Madrid calls Vini. Leipzig is not exactly an international heavyweight, but for Real in general and their offensive star in particular, this third matchday of the Champions League is associated with very special memories. Good ones and not so good ones.

The last time the two clubs met was in the round of 16 two and a half years ago. Real won the first leg with a lot of luck and especially because of a Leipzig goal that was wrongly disallowed. At the following meeting at the Estadio Santiago Bernabéu, little to nothing happened for an hour. Until Vinícius Júnior fell on his opponent Willi Orbán’s neck. But he didn't do this with deep affection - and was therefore very well served with a yellow card for an act of violence that was difficult to deny.

The people of Leipzig no longer understood the world of football and had little fun with the punchline that followed ten minutes later in the form of Madrid's opening goal, scored, of course, by Vinícius Júnior. In the stands they rolled their eyes in delight. Typical Vini! In the end, Real cheated their way into the quarter-finals with great difficulty and a 1-1 draw.

There was little to indicate in this tired start to the knockout round that this was the beginning of the Royals' last successful campaign in the most important club competition. It was more than just a statistical side note that “La Decimoquinta” was above all a triumph in the duel with the Bundesliga. On the way to the 15th ascension to the European throne, Real eliminated four German clubs: first FC Union Berlin in the preliminary round, Leipzig in the round of 16, FC Bayern in the semi-finals and Borussia Dortmund in the final at Wembley. Vinícius Júnior was instrumental in this, scoring two goals in the 2-2 draw in Munich. But without his very special performance against Leipzig it wouldn't have gotten this far. Typically Vini.

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