At 26, Vinicius Jr does not pretend to enjoy the discipline that keeps him on the Real Madrid pitch. He eats fish five times a week and dislikes every meal of it. He naps for 90 minutes every afternoon because he sleeps late and wakes early. He calls his own body “the machine”.
The Brazilian forward laid the whole routine out in an interview with El Español published on 3 August, the sort of unvarnished walk-through of a top footballer’s day that rarely makes the papers.
“I eat fish five times a week. I don’t like fish very much, but you have to eat it,” he told the paper.
Breakfast is scrambled eggs with nothing but water on the side. After training and lunch, he goes back to bed.
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“After lunch I normally have a nap of an hour and a half,” he said. “I wake up very early. I sleep very late and wake up very early.”
Recovery does not stop with the afternoon nap. Vinicius spends time every day inside a hyperbaric oxygen chamber, mask on, with the stated purpose of letting “the machine recover”. He has been using one at home since June 2020, reportedly at 95% oxygen purity, overseen by his personal Brazilian physio Thiago Lobo.
His nutrition plan is supplemented by a mandatory vitamin protocol. In the private gym at his La Moraleja home in Madrid, warm-ups come before load.
“The first [session] is just a warm-up, you have to prepare the body, prepare the machine so it can work,” he said.
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Five hours on the PlayStation
The one part of the day that does not read like a lab report is the evening. Vinicius sits down with friends and plays PlayStation from 7pm until midnight, five straight hours, his way of switching off from the pressure of a Real Madrid season.
The interview landed at a strange moment for the Brazilian. His contract was expiring, negotiations with Real Madrid had stalled after his camp had reportedly pushed for a deal in the ballpark of Kylian Mbappé’s, and Arsenal were circling in the belief that they could sign him for nothing next summer.
Three days after El Español published the interview, that door slammed shut. Real Madrid confirmed the extension of his contract until 30 June 2032, keeping him at the Bernabéu for what will be the rest of his prime.
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