Vinicius Junior’s substitution and the inconvenient truth

Neymar could not believe his eyes.

There were 19 minutes left and Brazil were still searching for a way past an obdurate Costa Rica side. Endrick, Brazil’s new darling, limbered up on the touchline — a welcome sight after so much huffing and puffing. The fourth official’s board went up. Coming on: No 9. Coming off…

“What?” Neymar said, Brazilian television cameras picking him out in the SoFi Stadium’s VIP seats. “Vini?”

Vini indeed. Off he trudged, Vinicius Junior, arguably the world’s best player, to watch the remainder of the 0-0 draw from a seat behind his manager. Brazil would seek that much-needed opening goal without him.

Neymar was not alone in his shock. Later, after a final siege of the Costa Rica goal had fizzled into nothingness, a mini inquest got underway. It was telling that the first question in Brazil coach Dorival Junior’s press conference was about the logic – or otherwise – of that substitution, the subtext obvious.

“At Real Madrid, Vini decides games,” wrote Thales Machado of Brazilian newspaper O Globo. “Dorival has to understand that and show faith in him.”

You can understand the argument and Neymar’s reaction. The great players are great because they can conjure something in a pinch. Vinicius Jr did not have a great game by any stretch of the imagination, but he is the brightest star in Brazil’s squad. He was denied a clear penalty in the first half and was surely still the Selecao’s best bet for some inspiration.

Dorival’s explanation – “We had to look for a solution and tried a change” – was typically diplomatic. If he had been feeling more spiky, though, he could have offered a rather more sturdy defence of his actions.

At Real Madrid, Vinicius Jr decides games, sure, but the first three words are doing a lot of heavy lifting there. The inconvenient truth is that Brazil-issue Vinicius Jr has yet to hit anything like the same heights.

For his country, he has scored just three goals in 31 appearances, including 21 starts. One of those was a penalty. He hasn’t scored since Brazil’s 4-1 friendly win against Guinea 12 months ago – nine players have found the net for Brazil since then. His last competitive strike was against South Korea at the 2022 World Cup.

Vinicius Jr averages a goal every 595 minutes for Brazil. Granted, he is not an out-and-out striker, but that has not stopped him from being prolific for Madrid, for whom he has averaged a goal every 176 minutes in all competitions across the last three seasons. The contrast is more stark than a Game of Thrones convention.

Football is not all about numbers, of course, but the intangibles don’t redeem Vinicius Jr either. There have been a few performances to quicken the heart — he was electric against South Korea in Qatar, for instance — but the swaggering, matador brio of his displays in Spain has only intermittently been seen for Brazil.

These are still early days. Vinicius Jr turns 24 next month and can still grow in stature. There have also been mitigating factors.

For one thing, his Brazil career has overlapped with that of Neymar, a footballer whose star power is almost gravitational. Even players as talented and effervescent as Vinicius Jr become supporting actors in the Neymarverse; only now is the younger man beginning to emerge as a leading man in his own right.

Tactically, too, playing for Brazil can be tricky for Vinicius Jr. He loves having room to accelerate – he is, at his best, a one-man counter-attacking unit – but other South American sides tend to sit deep when they face Brazil, meaning he rarely gets the chance to stretch his legs over longer distances. Costa Rica followed that game plan to the nth degree, turning Monday night’s match into a game of handball.

Dorival (centre) took Vinicius Jr off for Endrick (Patrick T Fallon /AFP via Getty Images)

It does not help that Vinicius Jr is increasingly a marked man. “Every time he got the ball, there were two men on him and a third arriving,” lamented Dorival.

It is also fair to question whether Dorival’s striker-less formation works in Vinicius Jr’s favour. He and Rodrygo seemed to get in each other’s way at times and it surely cannot be a coincidence that both have done their best work in Madrid alongside a more physical presence in central areas. For years, this was Karim Benzema, a jungle cat of a striker. Jude Bellingham is a different kind of player, but he also occupies defenders, allowing the two Brazilians to wreak havoc around him.

Brazil, of course, don’t have Benzema or Bellingham. Playing Endrick, a penalty-box predator, might be a start. There is also Porto striker Evanilson, although it would take huge bravery on Dorival’s part to select a player that many in Brazil had never heard of before he was named in the Copa America squad.

Whatever Dorival and Brazil’s opponents do, Vinicius Jr will know he has to offer more. He is now the man the Brazilian public looks to in the tough times and his club form will not shield him from criticism if he cannot translate it to the international stage. Dorival’s decision to take him off was not to everyone’s taste, but it did at least send a message: Brazil need Vinicius Jr to step up at this Copa America and beyond.

You only become indispensable by making yourself so.

(Top photo: Mark Leech/Offside/Offside via Getty Images)