{"id":12731,"date":"2025-06-27T01:00:31","date_gmt":"2025-06-27T05:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/sin-categoria\/vinicius-shines-heel-assist-for-valverde-in-real-madrid-victory\/"},"modified":"2025-06-27T01:00:31","modified_gmt":"2025-06-27T05:00:31","slug":"vinicius-shines-heel-assist-for-valverde-in-real-madrid-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/soccer\/vinicius-shines-heel-assist-for-valverde-in-real-madrid-victory\/","title":{"rendered":"Vin\u00edcius shines: Heel assist for Valverde in Real Madrid victory"},"content":{"rendered":"The Brazilian forward Vin\u00edcius J\u00fanior, after Real Madrid’s 3-0 victory over RB Salzburg in the Club World Cup, described his backheel assist for Federico Valverde as “one of the best of my career”.\n\nThe merengue player opened the scoring in the 40th minute at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, and then assisted Valverde for the 2-0 before halftime.\n\nGonzalo Garc\u00eda scored the third goal in the 84th minute, his second goal in three matches, thus ensuring that Madrid would lead Group H and advance to the round of 16, where they will face Juventus on Tuesday.\n\n

I am very happy with the assistance, I think it’s one of the best I’ve had in my career.<\/p>Vin\u00edcius J\u00fanior<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\nVin\u00edcius, named Most Valuable Player of the match, praised the impact of coach Xabi Alonso in the post-match press conference.\n\nThe player highlighted the team’s good form and adaptation to the coach’s ideas. “It’s been a very good two weeks. We are gaining confidence and trying to understand as quickly as possible what the boss wants. I have to play a little more inside, and I’ve always liked that, I’m closer to the goal,” he stated.\n\nVin\u00edcius’s heel assist generated comparisons with Real Madrid legend Guti, who made a similar assist in a match against Deportivo La Coru\u00f1a.\n\n

Vini’s was very good, but I was on the field for Guti’s, and it was crazy. So I’ll stick with that one. But Vini’s was almost, almost the same.<\/p>Xabi Alonso<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\nAlonso was also satisfied with Vin\u00edcius’ contribution without the ball.\n\n

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Real Madrid celebra un gol contra el Salzburgo en el Mundial de Clubes.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

Vini played a great game, but not just the goal and the assist, I focus on his sacrifice, his defensive commitment. It allowed us to be very compact with and without the ball, and then in attack to have a little more freedom.<\/p>Xabi Alonso<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\nMadrid used a new formation against Salzburg, with three central defenders, a style that Alonso often favored with Bayer Leverkusen.\n\nAlonso commented that the system change “was always there, in my head”.\n\n

The players have the intelligence and football culture to know why we use it and the positive things we get from it. In the first part we had a lot of stability and maturity.<\/p>Xabi Alonso<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\nAlonso also had positive words for Garc\u00eda, 21, who has impressed in attack in the absence of Kylian Mbapp\u00e9, still recovering from gastroenteritis.\n\n

[Garc\u00eda] is a typical number nine, he reminds me of [Ra\u00fal]. He’s always in the right position, always waiting for the opportunity, and has a great work ethic.<\/p>Xabi Alonso<\/cite><\/blockquote>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Brazilian forward Vin\u00edcius J\u00fanior, after Real Madrid’s 3-0 victory over RB Salzburg in the Club World Cup, described his backheel assist for Federico Valverde as “one of the best of my career”. The merengue player opened the scoring in the 40th minute at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, and then assisted Valverde for the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12732,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[787,254,402,1110],"class_list":{"0":"post-12731","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-club-world-cup","9":"tag-real-madrid","10":"tag-vinicius-junior","11":"tag-xabi-alonso"},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12731\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}