Carlo Ancelotti’s news conference was coming to an end when he addressed the elephant in the room in his typically subtle, elegant way.
“People sometimes say Brazil don’t have a star right now. Maybe that’s true,” the Brazil manager said before the friendly against Panama in late May.
“We don’t have a Pele, a Romario or a Ronaldo, but we can have a shared sense of responsibility, and that can be a very powerful thing.”
The expectation was for Real Madrid’s Vinicius Junior, by now, to have become the Selecao’s leading figure.
Yet, four years on from a penalty shoot-out exit against Croatia in the 2022 World Cup quarter-finals, doubts remain around the 25-year-old forward.
Such is the situation that, following Brazil’s 2-1 defeat by France in March, the debate in his homeland pivoted to whether Vinicius still deserved a place in the starting XI.
“Should Vinicius be dropped?” asked one of Brazil’s most traditional football panel shows, ESPN’s Linha de Passe.
Even with the arrival of former Real Madrid serial winner Ancelotti, arguably the most impactful coach Vinicius has had in his club career, the question that has defined his national team story so far continues to follow him.
Its gist is simply this: “Why can’t Vinicius reproduce his Madrid form with the Selecao?”
Vinicius is the Brazil player with the most goal involvements in this World Cup cycle, but his numbers are still modest – seven goals and six assists in 28 matches.
“Playing at the same level as he does for his club is complicated,” Cleber Xavier, who worked as Brazil’s assistant coach in the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, told BBC Sport.
“Once you get to the national team, the reality is much harder than it looks from the outside. At your club, it’s different training, a different way of playing, different team-mates, the day-to-day where things happen and develop.
“The clearest example is [Lionel] Messi with Argentina. He was always questioned about that and only managed to do it in 2022. But that’s because Argentina managed to build a team. In Qatar, we faced Croatia and they were almost like a club side because they repeated so many players. That’s how you give a player a proper structure.”
Vinicius has never shied away from the conversation.
“At our clubs, every three days there’s a new opportunity,” he told Caze TV in a recent interview.
“So if I play badly in two games out of 10, nobody is going to talk about it that much. With the national team, it’s a long time between one match and the next. The pressure is always huge and people always expect me to perform at my best.
“If I go to the World Cup, score four or five goals and we become champions, the whole story changes. Then people will say I was preparing myself for the World Cup all along, even in the games where I didn’t play well.”
