Vinícius Jr. made his comeback in Valencia with two vital goals, saving Real Madrid from a draw, following his ordeal of racist insults in May of last year. Vinicius Jr. showed his resolve to the supporters by clenching his fist after scoring his first goal against Valencia.
Vinicius Jr. in his first game back at Mestalla Stadium, the Brazilian attacker helped Real Madrid tie 2-2 with Valencia in the Spanish League—the same squad who subjected him to racist taunts the previous campaign. Hugo Duro and Roman Yaremchuk’s goals in the first half were cancelled out by goals from Vinicius Jr. in the 50th and 76th minutes.
Since the May cultural incident was among the harshest attacks experienced by any non-white player in Spain, support for the Brazilian forward has grown. The cultural problems persisted, but football authorities were forced to respond.
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Even while there were no instant reports of serious cultural comments on Saturday, a sizeable portion of the crowd jeered at Vinicius Jr. and yelled “Vinicius is foolish” during the game.
Vinicius Jr. raised his fist to Valencia’s supporters following his first goal, possibly as a protest to those who had made fun of him. He made the symbolic motion of closing his ears to emphasise the necessity to ignore the criticism.
After their match on Saturday, Real Madrid is leading the league by nine points over Barcelona and seven points over Girona. When Aurelien Tchouameni collided with Valencia’s Mouctar Diakhaby in the closing minutes, the defender suffered a clear injury to his leg and had to be stretchered off.
Jude Bellingham, who has 16 goals to lead the league, began Madrid’s season after missing three because of an ankle injury. The game ended with disagreements between the sides, which were resolved when Bellingham’s late winner was excused by the referee on the grounds that the game had ended.
Before playing Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League, Real Sociedad continued to struggle and lost 3-2 to Sevilla. Sevilla’s Youssef En-Nesyri scored two goals in a row in the eleventh and thirteenth minutes. Mehdizadeh’s unbound kick in stoppage time gave the visiting club an equaliser after Sergio Ramos scored a header in the 65th minute and Andre Silva missed a penalty kick for Sociedad. Sociedad’s relationship with the leaders was severed as a result of this defeat, which pushed them to seventh place.
In front of their supporters, Sociedad lost to Mallorca in the Copa del Rey quarterfinals last week, and they now have to defeat PSG in the round of 16.
Due to a left leg injury, Getafe’s 15-goal league scorer Borja Mayoral was forced to settle for a 3-3 draw with Las Palmas. Getafe’s leads of 2-0 and 3-2 were lost, and Munir El Haddadi’s vital equaliser helped Las Palmas complete their comeback.
The match between Cadiz and Rayo Vallecano ended in a 1-1 tie at home, with a delay in the second half brought on by heavy rain that temporarily closed the pitch.
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