Five reasons why Real Madrid will win La Liga in 2021-2022

Vinicius Junior

He had to be spoken about and more importantly, he deserves to have a full part dedicated to him and him alone. Vinicius Junior arrived at the club amidst some hype as Florentino Perez was actively looking for the next big talent. However, after spending some time with Real Madrid Castilla before making his move up to the senior squad, the young Brazilian was consistently criticized for his final touch. He will do everything right with the ball at his feet but his final shot or pass almost always went wayward which brought on a lot of noise asking for him to be benched or even loaned out so he can work on his finishing. Obviously, Perez ignored that and so did Zinedine Zidane and Carlo Ancelotti.

The Real Madrid fans were initially patient but as time went on, Vinicius was a joke to many. This sounds harsh and it is, but that’s what he became when speaking about his finishing. Even in a Clasico last year where Vinicius found the back of the net after his shot was deflected off Pique, the Barcelona defender admitted after the game that he “let him decide” as he knew that Vinicius more often than not gets the final touch wrong.

This year though, the beast that we have known existed yet waited for has arrived. Vinicius Junior started off the season on the bench as Eden Hazard was given the starting spot ahead of him. That didn’t mean he didn’t get his chances though as Ancelotti made sure that Vinicius was given a fighting chance and he took the chances with full authority and made the right wing his own for the foreseeable future. In the twelve games played so far in the league, he has played in all twelve matches (two as a substitute) and has seven goals and two assists to his name during that time. Compare that to previous seasons, he scored three goals in the entirety of the last season while scoring three as well the year before. In his first year at the club, he only scored twice.

So, if we were to wrap them all together before this season began, Vinicius has scored 8 league goals in a total of 82 appearances. The numbers obviously go higher if you were to bring in the UEFA Champions League and Copa del Rey numbers.

With seven goals already, many have pointed to the fact that he’s dangerous because he finally “learned” how to finish. Yet, that’s what they have ignored all along.

Vinicius Junior, albeit not being able to score many goals in the past, has almost always been admired by the managers he played for at the club because he’s dangerous. He’s fast, he can dribble and he opens up spaces in seconds giving the team a chance to come out with a devastating counter-attack and various options whenever they went forward. Mix his finishing abilities with that and the fact that he’s only getting better, Real Madrid with Vinicius are a very scary team moving forward and he already is a major part of the reason why Los Blancos have been doing as well as they are.