Kylian Mbappé took the alleged racist insults against Vinícius Jr. by Gianluca Prestianni very seriously, and the Real Madrid player fiercely defended his teammate during and after the match at the Estádio da Luz in Lisbon, a 1-0 victory for Real Madrid in the Champions League play-offs that served as a redemption from the 4-2 defeat three weeks ago.
The incident happened after the Argentinian player from Benfica allegedly called Vinícius "monkey" while the Brazilian was celebrating. The referee stopped the match ten minutes with the anti-racism protocol, and TV cameras from Movistar caught Mbappé saying "you're a fucking racist, you're a fucking racist" to Prestianni.
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Later, in the mixed zone, Mbappé explained to reporters what happened: "Benfica's number 25, I don't want to say his name, he doesn't deserve it, started speaking badly to Vinícius, it's not acceptable but it has happened before and will happen again. But then he lifted his shirt to say that Vinícius is a monkey five times, other players have heard it".
Mbappé said it's important to set the record straight because "there are 70,000 people who haven't done nothing, who only came here to support their team, I have utmost respect to Benfica and to the manager, who is one of the best in history, but this player doesn't deserve to play Champions anymore, to me".
"Champions League is the best competition, it inspires children, and we need to set the best example, if we allow these type of things to happen, all football values will be worthless."
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Mbappé also lamented that Vinícius always receives insults. "Vini has been provocative before? It's possible. Vini has done thins wrong in his career? It's possible, but he is never going to deserve these type of things. I can't understand people who says he deserves this, I think it's people who have never gone through something like this", he said in the mixed zone.
He later sent a message on X to support his teammate, as did many of his teammates.
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