As he endorsed his Real Madrid team-mate Karim Benzema to win the Ballon d’Or this year, Vinicius Junior said “there are no words” to describe his form.
Benzema scored twice in Madrid’s 4-3 loss to Manchester City in the first leg of their Champions League semi-final at the Etihad Stadium on Tuesday.
The first was a tricky twisting finish to bring Madrid back into the game after falling behind 2-0, and the second was a calm Panenka penalty late in the game to keep the tie alive.
Only Bayern Munich’s Robert Lewandowski (48 in 43) has scored more goals in the top five leagues than he has for Los Blancos this season.
The 34-year-old is the fifth Madrid player to reach the milestone.
Having finished behind Lionel Messi, Lewandowski and Jorginho in last year’s Ballon d’Or, Vinicius insists Benzema should land the 2022 award.
“There are no words that can describe how Benzema is playing,” Vinicius said. “He deserves the Ballon d’Or.
“I hope my brother Benzema ends up winning LaLiga, the Champions League and Ballon d’Or.”
Benzema scored a hat-trick in the second leg of the last-16 win over Paris Saint-Germain and another treble in the first leg of the quarter-final victory against Chelsea.
His nine goals in the knockout stages has been bettered only once in a single Champions League campaign – Ronaldo scoring 10 in the 2016-17 edition.
Vinicius is not alone in backing Benzema to win the Ballon d’Or, with former team-mate Mesut Ozil tweeting on Tuesday: “Give my boy Benzi the Ballon D’Or.”
Ex-Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand agreed with that assessment, quoting the tweet and adding the word “Facts”.
That post by Ferdinand was liked by Benzema, whose prospects of being crowned the world’s best player could be bolstered by helping France to World Cup glory in December.
Rather than bask in his glorious form, however, the prolific striker accepts his side have a lot of work to do if they are to advance any further in this season’s competition.
“A defeat is never good, but we are excited about this Champions League and the important thing is we never give up,” he told Movistar+.
“Now we have to go to the Bernabeu and we need the fans like never before to do something magical, which is to win.
“We entered the game without confidence, and that’s what happens with an opponent like Manchester City. In this game a little bit of everything was missing.”
