Real Madrid v Man City: Parallel paths of Vinicius and Haaland collide in UCL semi-finals

Shortly after Real Madrid lifted the Copa del Rey and a warm Saturday night in Seville spilt into the early hours of Sunday, the Madrid president Florentino Perez was grumbling about scheduling and praising the contribution to the final, a 2-1 win over Osasuna, of Vinicius Junior. “The best player in the world in his position”, Perez said of the Brazilian.

Vinicius had dazzled along his left flank. Both goals, scored by his compatriot winger Rodrygo, had their origins in jet-heeled Vinicius dribbles. He was tireless, too. Perez’s concerns about fatigue, with the Spanish Cup winners hosting Manchester City on Tuesday night in the first leg of a Champions League semi-final, were largely for other players.

Not the least of Vinicius’s virtues is his stamina. No Madrid player has been on the pitch for more minutes across the six competitions they, as defending Liga and European champions, have been involved in. He has played 46 matches, scored 22 goals and directly assisted another 21.

These are startling statistics, and were it not for the towering numbers attaching to Vinicius’ contemporary, Erling Haaland, Perez might have declared his man not just peerless as a left winger but as the best 22-year-old attacking footballer in the world.

The privilege for the Bernabeu is to see Haaland and Vinicius – 102 goals or assists between them this season – share a stage for the first time in careers that have climbed a similar, precocious trajectory while refining very different skills.

They were born nine days apart, in the first July of the new millennium, Vinicius Junior to a hardscrabble childhood in Rio de Janeiro, Haaland in Leeds, England. He would grow up being casually referred to as Haaland Junior, because his father, the