<div style="text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 1rem;"><b>At what point, exactly, does the relentlessly unpredictable start to become oddly routine? As ever, this was an absolute nut‑show of a football match inside Real Madrid’s steamy Centre Court‑style megadrome.</b></span><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; "><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Every ex-Stoke, Newcastle and Eintracht Frankfurt journeyman has his day. And this was the day of Joselu, Madrid’s 34‑year‑old own-brand Benzema, who scored with two of his first three touches in the final moments of a Champions League semi-final to turn 1-0 down into 2-1 up and another final for these irresistible power-meringues.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">That will be the tableau, the montage edit, the five‑thousand‑word deep-dive backstory on the Joselu I knew, Deep Joselu from Stuttgart to Madrid to the Potteries and now to London. There will of course be much talk of magic and witchcraft and theatre, the continuing inexplicable voodoo success of the world’s wealthiest football club, who somehow just keep on doing it against the head.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But for all the eerie background music, the most important part of this game was the cold hard and entirely logical brilliance of Vinícius Júnior, who was the best player on the pitch, and who for 20 minutes at the start of the second half took Joshua Kimmich into the deepest and darkest of places.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">These Champions League semi-finals have offered up a flip chart of coming stars and next-in-lines, the Ballon d’Or curious. Through Bellingham-Kane-Mbappé only Vinícius has produced the best of himself, playing at the Bernabéu not just with focus and energy, but with a startling sense of freedom, even at this level is still able to play in the true sense of the word, to be inventive and spontaneous, to enjoy himself.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Vinícius may end up winning the Ballon d’Or from here, on the back of nights like these. Certainly, it is hard to think of a more incisive and illuminating attacking player this season. By the end here he had five shots, seven dribbles, six crosses, and the scalp of Bayern Munich’s entire right side flapping from his belt.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He also produced that sustained spell both of individual brilliance between the 46th and 68th minutes, during which Vinícius basically tortured Kimmich, forcing him at one point to basically fall over and grab the ball, looking for a way to just make it stop. - The Guardian</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">bnbd/fas</div>