When Vinicius pointed with his index finger at one of his offenders in the Mestalla stands, he did us a great deal of good. In Valencia, it was very painful that the club had to settle all its outstanding accounts, so many offences of the same kind suffered by Vinicius everywhere; it hurt that the stigma of racism was individualised on that city and that stadium, but it had to happen somewhere. What was abnormal was not the consequences for Mestalla and Valencia’s reputation, what was abnormal had been the previous impunity of so many cases in so many stadiums.
Because here we will not be racist, as we insistently repeat to each other, but we tolerate those who are, and by this I refer both to the seat neighbour and to the judge who throws Tebas’ complaint into the bin. Only the latter was concerned, in his laudable desire to protect the image of LaLiga, about the Vinicius affair, but the indifference to his actions reached Real Madrid itself, which had not joined those complaints. His antagonism with Tebas would weigh more on Florentino’s mind than the desire to protect his player.
The fact is that with that attitude Vinicius thwarted such indifference. The sanctions from the federation arrived, the hooligans from Frente Atlético appeared as if by magic and hung a doll that represented him and even Florentino sat him in the box, surrounded by white men in ties, a sarcastic contrast.
To borrow a phrase from Churchill when the Allied landing in North Africa occurred, that was not the end, not even the beginning of the end, but the end of the beginning. This country adopted a tacit agreement to take a different position, at least officially, but it has to start somewhere. We all feel singled out by its finger and we react as a society.
We had to thank him for that. Because whether or not his manner provokes irritation, racist insults are intolerable. They are all intolerable, but those that reveal a racist impulse are particularly repugnant.
So he had earned some respect. The bad thing is that he has fallen into the temptation of taking himself too seriously and in his interview with CNN, which was generally correct, he let slip a nonsense whose headline dimension hides the rest of the conversation. Reading that Spain should be stripped of the 2030 World Cup if it does not evolve in the right direction sends a shudder through the whole tribe. And it puts Vinicius back in the position of a reckless provocateur that the most radical anti-Madrid supporters liked to frame him in, while discouraging his defenders, always indulgent of his avoidable attitudes.
It is too big a blunder. It calls into question a State project and casts a shadow over the moral condition of the country in which he lives, whose streets he walks, whose fields he has to play on. Perhaps he has been infatuated by his role as an anti-racist fighter, elevated to the status of Tommy Smith of the 21st century. Perhaps he has lacked better advice at the club, from which he has been placed with too much emphasis as a victim, which he was, denying his provocative streak, which he has. Perhaps it is excessive to expect from him, in addition to good runs and dribbles, good reasoning without slipping. Someone described him to me yesterday as a very excited boy without Juanito’s gift for excesses.
Rectification is possible, but it has not come. It is curious that Madrid, which issued an electric note correcting a man as sensible as Ancelotti when he questioned the Club World Cup, has now closed itself off in institutional silence.
Having ruled out the idea that silence is consent, I can only think that he has preferred to lock himself into his position that his player is a permanent aggrieved party, chosen by the club as an artificial symbol of the permanent persecutions that the club says, and perhaps even believes, it suffers from the media, referees, Tebas, UEFA…
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