Vinícius Júnior is essentially being hunted and hounded for sport

I n 1997, Roberto Carlos was racially abused while playing his first clásico for Real Madrid. Barcelona fans made monkey chants every time he touched the ball, held up racist banners and even scratched the word “monkey” on his car as a special treat for him to find later.

No charges or punishments were issued and if, after complaining publicly, Carlos was hoping for a little professional solidarity at this most harrowing of moments, he was out of luck. “This man talks a lot, he talks too much, he doesn’t know our fans and he hasn’t been here for long enough to justify these things,” Barcelona’s central midfielder retorted that day, a Spain international by the name of Pep Guardiola.

It would be nice to imagine we have made some progress in the intervening quarter-century: that black footballers would be able to go about their business in one of the world’s biggest leagues without having to negotiate the horrific obstacle course of racism, that the game itself would not be quite so eager to play it down. And yet there are times, when watching the case of Vinícius Júnior, when you begin to wonder.

It’s hard to pinpoint when Vinícius started being targeted by opposition fans for abuse. There were some monkey chants at Mallorca’s Son Moix stadium this month, a few shouts from the Osasuna end during the minute’s silence for the Turkey and Syria earthquake, the effigy hung from a motorway bridge near Real’s training ground last month, bedecked in the red and white of Atlético Madrid.

But this has been going on for more than a year, a grisly gauntlet of othering and dehumanisation that seems to have taken on a horrific performative quality. Somehow, the longer it continues, the more routine it becomes, the more and less