If having played with Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi is fortunate for the handful of people concerned, there is a price to pay for being in the front row. Answering the exhausting questions about the “GOAT” debate is part of it, as Vitinha now knows. While in front of the press during a meeting with Portugal at the beginning of September, the Parisian was unable to decide. “They are two players apart, two extraterrestrials. I have the privilege of having played with both, and I will be able to tell my grandchildren about it. »
A statement which says a lot about the Portuguese’s love for lateral passes, a penchant not really appreciated by detractors ready to sew him a wool to remedy this reluctance which they abhor, even if it means tipping into obsession. Among the video extracts from the last OM-PSG (where he was a scorer) which were filmed after the classic, a little juggling act by Viti in the middle of three Marseillais that a gala Pastore would not have shunned. But in his genius, the Portuguese was wrong to follow up with a back pass, enduring criticism from those who would undoubtedly have preferred that he sent an unproductive sausage to Randal Kolo Muani.
Vitinha, the “perfect” football nerd for Luis Enrique
However, there is nothing more suited to the conservation football of Paris Saint-Germain than this caution, as frustrating as it may be. In Portugal, his understanding of the game has earned him comparisons to Bernardo Silva, coveted in vain by PSG. A blessing in disguise for Vitinha, who would have been ordered to sit nicely on the bench, because these two are not made to live together, as recalled a weekly column Espresso. “Vitinha and Bernardo will hardly be able to play at the same time. It’s a shame. With so much intelligence, our environment [de la Seleção] could enter Oxford. » Football knowledge that the former portista cultivates.
“I think I have a bit of a coach in me, but like every player, because nowadays our training requires it,” he declared during the last meeting with his national team. Maybe individually I have a little more, yes, because I’m interested [au jeu], I like it and I ask questions, I find out a lot. »
No wonder, then, that he is considered the perfect player by his club coach. “Luis Enrique often asks his players not to lose the ball and Vitinha offers him a lot of guarantees on this aspect,” analyzes former Parisian José Karl Pierre-Fanfan, now a consultant for Canal +. It’s a quality to know what you can and cannot do on a pitch. Not taking risks also means avoiding stupidly losing the ball and conceding a dangerous situation. » Perfection, therefore, according to Enrique.
“ “Vitinha is a perfect player for a coach of my style. He doesn’t lose the ball, which is exactly what we want to do in our style. Then, he is able to get between the lines, to fix, to break away, to score… I must congratulate him and push him to stay at this level and even to raise this level. » »
Best as a trailing leader
If it were to stop there for this season, the progress in less than a year of the player trained in Porto remains astonishing. Whatever happens to Luis Enrique at PSG, Vitinha’s management will remain as one of his great successes, even if history will remember that it all started with the thankless attribution of this false role of left winger to compensate for laziness defense of Kylian Mbappé.
“It was against Dortmund that he really reached a milestone,” explains former Parisian Tripy Makonda, who today comments on PSG matches. He went from this hybrid position with Mbappé to a position at number 6. He immediately took on much more importance and the game was much more fluid. He knows how to play under pressure in these conditions, and that allowed him to play forward, something he didn’t do between the lines. »
A tactical blow repeated in the second half of the 8th final first leg of the Champions League against Real Sociedad, which will finally convince Luis Enrique of the relevance of this positioning of Viti, to the detriment of Ugarte, the strong man at the start of the season in front of the defense. “But be careful, Luis Enrique is very cyclical with his players,” warns Pierre-Fanfan. Ugarte is a good example. At the start of the season, we had the impression that it was his player, and he had the misfortune of missing 2-3 games, then we didn’t see him again. »
Like all the others, Vitinha for a time paid the price for the oddities of the Spanish technician: after the recital in Dortmund, he found himself on the substitutes’ bench for the Classic at the Parc des Princes, arousing the incomprehension of the little mustachioed man. A scene told by Enrique himself on PSG TV. “I remember him coming up to me in the locker room, saying, ‘Is something wrong?’ I told him: “No no, nothing.” »
Freed by the departures of Messi and Neymar
We would hardly be surprised to learn that the maneuver was intended to test the personality of the player, stamped as too nice, not bold enough or full of himself as required by this sport practiced at the highest level. In short, everything that could have explained his difficult adaptation last year, after the encouraging first quarter under Galtier and Messi’s first baseness in training (half denied by the victim).
“Between historic players and world stars like Neymar or Messi, it was still difficult to exist” theorizes Pierre-Fanfan, joined by Makonda: “With the three stars in front of him, it was harder for him to express himself like in Porto, where he was the centerpiece. In terms of decision-making it changes a lot of things, he had to learn to put himself at the service of others. While he was very influential at Porto, taking the ball quite low while often being the penultimate pass. »
So many weapons that we have found in the Portuguese since he returned to form with PSG, in addition to an appreciable mid-distance shot quality which has allowed him to score seven goals this season. Not too bad, for a player who only takes side steps.