‘You’ll see in a few years’ - Hazard previewed Vinicius' meteoric rise to Courtois

Real Madrid goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois in an interview with Rio Ferdinand admitted that sometimes they should have reacted more forcefully to the racist episodes that Vinicius Junior has received and cited what happened in Valencia.

The Brazilian footballer received racist insults in Valencia in 2023 and those involved were sentenced to prison terms of up to eight months.

“I love a great atmosphere in a stadium and I love it when there is a great rivalry, but if you were to hear what we have to listen to in some fields.... It's unbelievable,” Courtois commented.

He added: “Sometimes it goes too far. I'm not saying it has to be like in the NBA, that a player can say 'you have to leave because you said this to me', but with racism you have to have zero tolerance and I think sometimes we could have reacted more firmly on the pitch when things have happened, like in Valencia.”

“Like leaving the pitch,” Ferdinand replied, to which the Real Madrid goalkeeper added: ”Yes, like leaving. I understand that it wasn't the whole stadium, but, if, as a club, you suddenly have to close a part of your stadium, the impact is going to be very big.”

On Vinicius himself, Courtois recalled that Eden Hazard told him that the Brazilian was going to be very good from the first moment he saw him. "The only guy who told me: ‘You’ll see in a few years’ was Eden Hazard. He told me straight away when he saw him. He felt that he had something special."

“He is a player that when he is not with us we miss him a lot. He has a great one-on-one, he's very strong, his speed is incredible, he has a great shot, left-footed and right-footed, and overall he's a great player,” he said.

“And with everything he's been through, because it's not easy for him to go to every stadium. If you go to an away game of ours, from the first minute they whistle at him, they shout at him, they try to drive him crazy, but I think he's learned to deal with it. Like Cristiano and Messi had to do, because a smart defender is always going to try to annoy them. Diego Costa was the opposite, when he played he was always bothering you,” the goalkeeper said.