Vitor Roque arrived at Barcelona in the last winter transfer window with a lot of hopes and expectations surrounding him, but various factors have combined to keep him from becoming a prominent part of Xavi’s squad this season.
Owing to this lack of prominence in the team, a lot of questions have been raised about the striker’s continuity at the club, with some reports suggesting that the Catalans are thinking of sending him out on a loan this summer.
Amid these reports of a loan, the player’s agent himself came out to protest the lack of minutes being afforded to his agent, and made it clear that if Roque left Barcelona it would only be on a permanent transfer.
One of the arguments that Andre Cury, Roque’s agent, made to ask for more patience and more opportunities for his client was reminding Barcelona of how Vinicius Junior had emerged at Real Madrid after joining the Merengues at a very young age.
Now, Mundo Deportivo has compared the performances of the two players in the initial part of their careers in Spain, and shows that the Barcelona striker is performing even better than how his compatriot did in his first 25 call-ups with the first team.
Vitor Roque has been a part of the Barcelona first-team squad 25 times now, and has made 13 appearances, starting only 2 of these games. In these appearances, he has accumulated 310 minutes on the pitch, and has scored 2 goals.
On the other hand, Vinicius made 14 appearances – which translates into 701 minutes – in his first 25 first-team call-ups for Real Madrid, started 7 of these games, and also had two goals to his name.
Thus, Tigrinho has scored the same number of goals as Vinicius did, despite having almost one-half of the time on the pitch as his older compatriot. However, it needs to be reminded here that the Real Madrid winger also had five assists to his name in these first 25 call-ups, while Roque is yet to open his account for assists.
These statistics show that there is merit in Cury’s argument when he asks Barcelona to be more patient with Roque, and points to the successful integration of Vinicius Junior at Real Madrid.
The Tigrinho also has comparable numbers with some of the other top attacking prodigies in Europe, and definitely deserves more time on the pitch to showcase his talents the next season.
