Real Madrid’s marketing team managed something the club’s rivals rarely manage on the pitch: they made Vinicius Júnior look small.
An official pre-season photoshoot of the Brazilian winger went viral on X, with a run of stills of his facial expressions and body language spawning thousands of memes under the same shorthand: “aura loss”. The joke is that a player most fans consider one of the sport’s coolest figures on a matchday looks, in the club’s own images, like anyone dragged into a corporate media day.
The reactions were merciless.
“I spent all day staring at this photo in disbelief. I honestly don’t even know what to say. I can’t believe it isn’t edited,” one widely shared post read.
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Another compared the moment to a classic universal cringe.
“When your crush laughs at one of your jokes and you’re already thinking about marriage.”
The 26-year-old signed until 2032
The timing is what makes it. Two weeks earlier, Real Madrid had confirmed they had “agreed on the extension of our player’s contract, which links him to the club until June 30, 2032”, a long-term commitment to the 26-year-old that closed out a summer of Arsenal speculation and a prolonged public silence around the renewal.
The official coverage underlined why the club wanted him tied down: since arriving from Flamengo in 2018, Vinicius has scored 128 goals and registered 100 assists for Real, and built a trophy haul that includes two Champions League titles and three La Liga crowns. Whatever “aura” is, on a football pitch he has plenty of it.
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In the club’s own studio this week, apparently not.
Mourinho’s Madrid, one week from kickoff
The photoshoot went viral in the same week Real Madrid wound down José Mourinho’s first pre-season back at the club. The Portuguese returned for a second spell in charge in June, after a campaign in which Real finished runners-up to Barcelona in La Liga, exited the Champions League in the quarterfinals and ended the season without a major trophy. Speaking last week, Mourinho told reporters his side were building carefully into the season.
“We’re taking it step by step, and next week we’ll be serious,” Mourinho said.
By the first competitive whistle of La Liga, the internet’s verdict on Vinicius’s “aura” will not be the one that matters.
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