Ex-Real Madrid Staff Names Vinicius Jr. Price, Blasts Squad Planning

A former Real Madrid scout named what he believes will be President Florentino Perez’s asking price for Vinicius Jr., and also criticized how the squad has been planned in 2024/2025, during an interview with SPORT.

Manolo Romero spent 20 years at the club from the Spanish capital. Working as its eyes in Catalonia, he managed to uncover talents such as Kiko Casilla, Ruben Yanez and Mariano Diaz on turf that is usually the stomping ground of bitter rivals FC Barcelona and, to a lesser extent, Espanyol.

During an interview with SPORT, Romero was reminded of transfer buzz surrounding Vinicius Jr. last year, with El Chiringuito reporting that Los Blancos received a $520 million (€500 million) bid for the Brazilian who was recently handed FIFA’s ‘The Best’ award.

While we’ll probably never know if that news was accurate, Romero said he “was convinced” that Vinicius would leave Madrid.

“If they come with more than €300 million, I am convinced that Florentino sells him, and that he even takes him to the airport in his car. The thing is that €300 million is a lot of money. I think Florentino’s darling is going to be [Kylian] Mbappe. He has been after him for seven years,” Romero predicted.

As for Madrid’s planning for the 2024/2025 season, Romero said that it has been “very bad” and the club’s “main mistake” by failing to properly prepare for the post-Toni Kroos era or make sure that there is enough cover in defense where the likes of Eder Militao and Dani Carvajal have fallen to serious injuries.

“It hasn’t been reinforced in what it should have been reinforced. It has many shortcomings,” Romero said.

“I think that everything is conditioned by the enormous expense that the construction of the Bernabeu Stadium is entailing, because otherwise it can’t be explained that Madrid has one less center back than last year.

“Last year it went well. But of course, there was the one who knew how to play the most of all, which was Toni Kroos, and [Luka] Modric was a year younger. Now he he’s a year older. That’s where Madrid’s problems begin,” Romero concluded on this.