The sparkling pair of 24-karat goals Vinicius Junior scored on Sunday for Real Madrid at Levante in LaLiga was so shimmeringly beautiful that it would be easy to be distracted by the duo's majesty.
It would be simplicity itself to be focus exclusively on the killer-clinical finishes, or to hail the theatrical drama of Vinicius having come to the aid of his rudderless, sinking team only to produce two career-best goals within 26 minutes of joining the fray to salvage a 3-3 draw
It would be natural, too, to point out that if any of the great, elegant, modern strikers -- from Thierry Henry to Didier Drogba, via Ronaldinho and Ronaldo Nazario -- had produced identical finishes, we'd have raved about their sang-froid, about what devastating footballers they were -- no provisos, no "but ..." hovering in the air. However, this is Vinicius.
You don't have to live in Spain to be aware of the monotonous, dull-minded campaign waged against him by some parts of Spain's football media. That he's dopey; that he lacks a thought in his head when it comes to the "killer" moment. That he's all piston-legs and no winning psychology. This kid from Brazil, who's only just turned 21, has been consistently portrayed as a one-trick pony whose trick isn't all that special anyway. He has been disparaged, undervalued and treated as if his feelings, his ambition, his work ethic and his Teflon-tough mentality were mere flotsam and jetsam.
All of his notable character traits were considered irrelevant compared to the fancy, snide adjectives that could be conjured up to damn with faint praise when he successfully contributed, or unleashed mercilessly when (or if) he over-ran a possible assist, or micro-missed the right decision about whether he was facing a shooting or a passing opportunity.
It's truly remarkable that so many have stubbornly taken an eternity to realise that Vinicius isn't just blessed with remarkable talent -- he's improving, he's working really hard at the things he was lacking, and his statistics are startling.
For example, feast on this: aged 21, Vinicius has goal- and assist-per-minute ratios in senior club football that are either equal to or better than those of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo at the same age. Just take a moment to think about that. By the time Messi was 21, he'd scored 42 goals and made 24 assists, and it had taken him 7,369 minutes in Barcelona colours to do so. At the same age, Ronaldo had scored 27 goals and produced 27 assists in 9,552 minutes for Sporting Lisbon and Manchester United.
Those two were, at that stage of their careers, being talked about in hushed terms -- they were phenomena in the making. There was absolutely zero criticism or myopically ignorant reporting of Messi, while the worst that was said about Ronaldo was that he loved a step-over almost as much as a cross or a goal. Sir Alex Ferguson, his manager at United, was already saying that he'd not seen anyone braver in drawing and taking tackles since George Best.