Vinicius Jr Reacts To Ballon d’or Result After Losing To Rodri

Vinicius Junior took to social media to react after finishing second in the Ballon d’Or voting behind Manchester City’s Rodri and rather than any kind of congratulations to the Spanish star, vowed to repeat his campaign “ten times” over if he needed to, to earn recognition with the game’s top individual prize.

The Brazilian forward was widely regarded as the frontrunner for the award in the lead-up to the France Football ceremony in Paris on Monday night.

However, just before the event, rumors surfaced suggesting that Rodri had taken the lead in the voting.

As a result, Real Madrid decided not to send a delegation to the awards night, which is typically their practice.

Consequently, even though they won the best men’s team award, best coach (Carlo Ancelotti), and a shared Gerd Müller trophy (with Kylian Mbappé), no representatives from the Santiago Bernabéu club were present to accept the awards, and no recorded messages were sent.

Following the culmination of the ceremony, where Barcelona’s Aitana Bonmati won the Feminin award, and Rodri claimed the men’s prize, Vinicius immediately posted on X, “I’ll do it 10 times if I have to. They’re not ready.”

While George Weah was preparing to read out the winner’s name on stage in Paris, several shouts of “Vini” could be heard from the crowd before Rodri, on crutches as he recovered from injury, headed up to claim his prize.

Real Madrid was widely criticized by social media users for essentially boycotting the awards night, with some feeling it showed a lack of respect for other players and clubs and others merely seeing it as another entitled act from a club that has long been perceived as feeling that injustices towards them are injustices towards all of football.

One of Vinicius’ teammates also posted on X, with Eduardo Camavinga claiming “football politics” saw the award erroneously handed to Rodri.

Real Madrid suffered a humiliating 4-0 defeat to arch-rivals Barcelona in El Clásico over the weekend.

Meanwhile, the Catalan club attended the Ballon d’Or awards ceremony, where they secured the best women’s team trophy, and winger Lamine Yamal received the Kopa Trophy for best under-21 player.