Eight years. Twenty incidents. One man who keeps showing up to work anyway.
Vinicius Jr. arrived in Europe in 2018 as a teenager from Brazil, electric talent barely formed, a kid with a smile that could light up a stadium. Since then, he has become one of the sport's brightest stars. He has also, according to a damning chronology compiled by El Grafico, been subjected to 20 documented acts of racism — directly or indirectly — across eight years of European football.
The latest came at Estadio da Luz in Lisbon, during Real Madrid's Champions League visit to Benfica. Racist gestures from fans in the stands. And then something new: an accusation that Benfica player Gianluca Prestianni, a 20-year-old Argentine, directed racist insults at Vinicius during the match itself. Real Madrid players corroborated the account. UEFA has opened an investigation. If confirmed, Prestianni faces a minimum 10-match suspension under UEFA's anti-racism regulations.
But what happened next was extraordinary — even by the standards of this long and ugly story.
Luisão, one of the greatest players in Benfica's history, a former club captain whose number hangs from the rafters at Da Luz, went public with a statement that nobody in European football saw coming. His club had posted a photo of Prestianni to Instagram with the caption "Together, by your side." Luisão called that statement a lie. And then he said what the club would not.
"This shirt is very heavy, I love Benfica, it's my second skin. You have to be worthy to wear the sacred mantle. This text gets worse because it's a lie... He was a racist rat yes and I'm ashamed of it."
A club legend, publicly calling a current player a "racist rat." That sentence is going to echo through European football for a long time.
The criticism came from all directions. Former player Felipe Melo, Vinicius's compatriot, was incendiary on social media. Former referee Mark Clattenburg made comments suggesting Vinicius had "made this situation very, very difficult" — comments for which Clattenburg later issued an apology following widespread condemnation.
Here is what I want you to understand about that 20-incident figure. Twenty is not a series of bad luck. Twenty is a systemic failure. Twenty is what happens when institutions treat each incident as isolated rather than cumulative, when investigations move slowly, when punishments fail to deter, when a player who is one of the three best in the world still has to absorb this abuse every time he takes the pitch in Europe.
Vinicius has been fighting this battle almost entirely alone, at least in the beginning. He has protested. He has pointed. He has spoken to presidents and prime ministers. He has refused to be silent. And still we arrive at twenty.
UEFA has a responsibility to move with decisive speed here. Prestianni must face whatever the investigation warrants. The Benfica fans caught making racist gestures must be identified and banned. And European football's governing bodies must reckon with the fact that their rules, as currently enforced, have not stopped incident number twenty. They will not stop incident twenty-one without something fundamentally changing.
Vinicius Jr. deserves to play football. That should not be a radical statement. In 2026, it still feels like one.
