The Vinicius Junior Real Madrid role is not what it was twelve months ago, and the most striking part of the story is that the Brazilian himself appears to have made his peace with it.
Two games into the Jose Mourinho era, the loudest voices in this attack belong to Kylian Mbappe and Jude Bellingham and according to Diario AS, the No. 7 knew that before he signed his new contract.
What the Vinicius Junior Real Madrid role looks like now
For several seasons there was no argument about it: Vinicius was the protagonist.
Everything Real Madrid did going forward bent towards the left touchline. As reported by Madrid Universal, relaying Diario AS, that is no longer the case. Mbappe and Bellingham are now considered the two leading figures of Mourinho’s project, and the 26-year-old is said to have accepted the reordering rather than resisted it.
Crucially, the report suggests this was not a shock delivered to him in August. Vinicius had already absorbed the change when he put pen to paper on the renewal that ties him to the club until 2032, per Marca. His stated focus now is narrower and, arguably, healthier: rediscovering his own best level rather than out-shining the two men beside him.
Mbappe and Bellingham have set the tone
The early evidence has done nothing to slow the shift. Bellingham scored at Espanyol on the opening weekend, then produced two assists and a genuinely outstanding all-round performance against Real Sociedad. Mbappe opened his own account for the campaign in the same match, with a hat-trick in the 4-1 win at the Santiago Bernabeu.
Six points, six goals, and two players carrying the headlines. Hierarchies in football dressing rooms are rarely announced; they are established by weeks like that one.
Whistles, then applause at the Bernabeu
The more delicate part of this is the relationship between Vinicius and sections of his own crowd, which soured during last season’s disappointing campaign and has not fully healed. There were whistles at the Bernabeu on Wednesday night when a couple of his actions came to nothing — an uncomfortable sound to hear inside your own stadium in August.
What followed was the version of Vinicius that Madridistas have been waiting for. He grew into the game, scored, set one up, and the whistles turned into applause. Marca noted it was his first goal since the renewal was settled, and it arrived after Bellingham refused to give up on his own rebound in the 67th minute.
Mourinho read the moment precisely. He took Vinicius off shortly after the goal, and later explained that he wanted the Brazilian to walk off the pitch carrying the affection of the stands rather than risk the mood turning again. It was small, deliberate stagecraft — and it worked.
Why the reset suits everybody
None of this reads as a demotion. A forward line in which Mbappe and Bellingham shoulder the burden of expectation is one in which Vinicius can do what he does best: attack full-backs one against one, without the additional weight of being the man who must settle every match on his own.
It also fits the pattern of how Mourinho has handled him from day one. As we covered this week, the Portuguese has invested far more one-to-one conversation in Vinicius than in Mbappe, largely because he judged that the Brazilian needed rebuilding while the Frenchman did not.
Los Blancos head into the Malaga game top of the table and unbeaten, with Aurelien Tchouameni and Endrick still short of full fitness. If the price of a functioning Real Madrid attack is that Vinicius Junior is now the third name on the team sheet rather than the first, few at the Bernabeu will be complaining — least of all, it seems, the player himself.
