Flamengo sporting director Jos\u00e9 Boto has publicly suggested Vinicius Junior may one day return to his boyhood club as contract talks at Real Madrid have stalled. Boto told AS, \u201cPeople who pass through Flamengo have a love and a passion forever,\u201d and added, \u201cThere will be a time when he wants to come back. That\u2019s for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those comments arrive against a backdrop of disrupted negotiations at the Spanish club. Previous tensions between Xabi Alonso and Vinicius Jr did not help matters; the forward reportedly halted all negotiations in November because of his strained relationship with the new boss. The lack of progress on a new deal has raised questions over the future of Real Madrid\u2019s No. 7.<\/p>\n
Saudi Pro League clubs are among the suitors tracking the 25-year-old, while Flamengo have also indicated interest in a potential return. Vinicius Jr\u2019s early career remains part of the conversation: he made 69 appearances for Flamengo, scoring 14 goals, before signing with Real Madrid in 2017 at age 16. Once he celebrated his 18th birthday, the Brazilian left his native country for the Spanish capital.<\/p>\n
Form and output are central to how the situation is viewed. The winger is in the middle of a 13-game goal drought, having last scored in Real Madrid\u2019s 3\u20131 victory over Villarreal on Oct. 4. Since that night at the Bernab\u00e9u he has provided only three assists, two of which came against Olympiacos in the Champions League. Comparisons with his attacking partner have intensified: Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 has scored 28 goals this season compared with Vinicius Jr\u2019s five.<\/p>\n
Despite speculation and outside interest, the player has repeatedly signalled his loyalty to Real Madrid. The club and player will need to resolve the contract standoff if that loyalty is to be formalised, and a return to his best levels would strengthen any case for a new agreement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Flamengo sporting director Jos\u00e9 Boto expects Vinicius Jr could return amid stalled Real Madrid talks<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5190,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[987,1163],"tags":[1033,1047,986],"class_list":["post-5191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-real-madrid","category-transfers","tag-brazilian-football","tag-champions-league","tag-contract-standoff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}