ZUZU F.C.

They shout, Monkey, mimicking its movements with their arms. They threw bananas on the pitch. Those never go out of fashion as despicable acts of violence against another fellow human being in European Leagues. For way too long, many players simply chose to ignore racism because they thought that this is the way things are.

For Vinicius Jr from Real Madrid, that 💩 ain’t flying. He’s fighting back. And last week, supported by the Brazilian Federation and Nike, Brazil played against Guinea in Spain with an all-black uniform as part of an anti-racism campaign. 

Although everything about this creative is on point, it only tells part of the picture. 

During the match, Vinicius Jr.’s friend came to the stadium to watch the game and suffered a racist attack moments before the kick-off. A banana was handed over to him by one of the stadium staff members, and told that it was his “gun.” That is insane. The anti-racism campaign slogan is “When there’s racism, there’s no game.” However, there was a game. It makes one wonder how effective these campaigns really are. Or is it always a preaching-to-the-choir effect? Sadly, right now, it seems the latter.

Vini Jr wore the mythical Brazil’s number 10 for the first time in his career. Ten was also the number of incidents involving Real Madrid’s winger reported during the 2022-23 La Liga season. If anyone is resilient enough to carry this burden and this blessing, it’s my guy Vini Jr. Maybe he’ll soon realize that taking the slogan to its literal meaning is the only option to see a real change. Hopefully, next time he’ll just walk away. No game.

I hope he does.