Vinicius paradox: the most bookings and fouls received in LaLiga
The Real Madrid winger picked up another yellow card at the Villamarín - his 11th of the season... Paradoxically, he is also the most fouled player in LaLiga, by some way.
Sometimes football defies all logic. Vinicius was booked again at the weekend and is now, along with Atlético’s Giménez, the player with the most yellow cards in LaLiga (in all competitions) with 11. It’s almost double the figure of the next most booked player among his Real Madrid team mates - two much more defensive players, Nacho and Camavinga who are both on six. But strangely, at the same time, Vini is the player who has been subjected to the most fouls in the league so far this season, with 78 fouls blown - 18 more than the next player, Rayo’s Isi (60)... If the Brazilian plays all of the remaining 14 games this season, and continues to with the same average number of fouls he has been suffering, he will end the campaign have suffered around 125 fouls - close to the league record.
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Madrid’s opponents use a variety of different tactics to stop Vinicius in his tracks - from the most basic, a kick, clipping or tripping him; to more subtle ploys, such as gradually grinding him down, physically and psychologically - a drip technique employed throughout the game. On Sunday, Vinicius left Villamarín with a yellow card for protesting, while one of the players who was tasked with marling him, Germán Pezzella, got off scott-free - even though three of his challenges were deemed bookable offences by AS resident ref Iturralde González. That’s football, as they say.
For the match officials in charge of games, the underlying theme is Vinicius’ despair when protesting - that in itself is getting him in the book, and sometimes merit a second warning. It seems that some referees are trigger happy when it comes to dealing with the Madrid forward when the team plays away from home. His last four yellow cards in the league, including Sunday’s, came when Madrid were on the road. And off the seven yellow cards he has been shown in the league, five came in the first half, which is quite a significant detail.
From Vinicius’ point of view, from what we have seen him endure out on the pitch, it’s clear he is going to have to learn to deal with being obstructed with the patience of a saint. At the weekend, we saw how Claudio Bravo tussled with him, preventing him from retrieving the ball quickly when Madrid were awarded a corner. No card was shown. “It’s part of the show,” the Chilean explained afterwards in the flash zone. A show in which Vinicius always appears as the villain.