Real Madrid: 5 most important players vs. PSG in the first leg of the Round of 16

LW Vinicius Jr.

A player of utmost importance to Real Madrid this season. Unlike the last season which was more of a one-man show (Karim Benzema), this season Real Madrid had Vinicius Jr. to trust, with the Brazilian stepping up to help Karim Benzema in sharing the burden of scoring goals.

His statistics of this season are so great, and deserves a lot of appreciation. Vinicius Jr. has scored a total of 15 goals and averaged 2.6 shots for Los Blancos so far this season. He averages 2.1 key passes a game and thus has 8 assists in his name. Being a player with high quality, Vini manages to complete 3 dribbles a game and gets fouled at least 2.1 times in a game.

Statistics tell us a lot about a player’s form. But there are certainly other factors, such as the opposition that one must consider.

This time, we are facing PSG and I don’t have a very good feeling that Vinicius Junior will have a good game, and there is a reason for this. Do you guys remember the Madrid Derby this season? Remember how Vinicius suffered against Marcos Llorente? The first true impact he had on that game was when he switched to the right flank during the counterattack.

I think that it will more or less be the same in this match. Marcos Llorente is not a natural right back, Hakimi is. And Hakimi can cause a lot of problems to Real Madrid, given how much their gameplay has started depending on Vinicius Junior.

The only way I think the Brazilian prodigy can create a significant impact is if he either makes those forward runs as against Liverpool, or he switches more to the right, from where PSG’s defence can suffer.

Irrespective of that, I hope that Vinicius has a great game, and the Brazilian shows the world that no one can question his presence at the club and that he is the future of football.