Vinicius Jnr sends word-less Instagram message to Mo Salah after beating him on Wednesday
Vinicius Jnr has shown his respect to Mohamed Salah after Real Madrid beat Liverpool in the Champions League.
The two came up against each other on the Santiago Bernabeu wing on Wednesday with Vinicius once again winning the day. The Brazilian is yet to lose in five games against the Reds.
Vinicius proved to be a thorn in Liverpool’s side across both legs. After scoring two crucial goals in the first game at Anfield, he then bagged an assist for Karim Benzema on Wednesday night.
But although it was the younger man who sparkled this time, he clearly think a lot of his counterpart at Liverpool.
Taking to his Instagram stories yesterday, Vinicius posted a picture of he and Salah hugging on the pitch together. Tagging in Liverpool’s Egyptian King and adding a shooting star emoji, it’s clear what the 22-year-old thinks of our Mo.
Respect grows between old foes
Having dumped out Liverpool once again, you might expect a certain gloating from Madrid players. Certainly, players like Luka Modric have hardly been respectful in victory over the Reds before.
Salah has taken the brunt of that in the past, with his fighting talk ahead of last year’s final coming back to bite him in Paris.
But no, it has actually been a wholly respectful match-up this time around. From Liverpool’s floral tribute to Madrid’s late honorary president Amancio, to Real blasting out YNWA at the end of Wednesday’s game. There was a genuine air of mutual respect between the clubs.
Some supporters won’t like this, no doubt. There may be something in the argument that they’re being nice to us because they don’t see us as any kind of threat.
Liverpool have been beaten by Real Madrid in each of the last three Champions League campaigns. Extend that back to 2017/18, and the Reds have crashed out at Los Blancos hands in four of the last six seasons. When you factor in that two of those were finals, it really starts to hurt.
So, there could be an element of that, some may even suggest a hint of pity about Madrid and their player’s actions. But we don’t see it that way at all. We see an enormous club paying respect to another enormous club after some hard-fought battles on the biggest stage in recent years. We’ll be back, and next time we’re winning!
