Vitinha still can't quite get his head around the fact that he got to play in the same side as Lionel Messi, Neymar and Kylian Mbappe. "It was like a dream," the Paris Saint-Germain midfielder told The Times earlier this month. "It just didn't feel real for a long time... I will remember it for the rest of my career because I played with the best. It's something I will tell my children, and my grandchildren, one day."
As Vitinha also admitted, though, it wasn't always easy for him. He couldn't sit back and enjoy watching three of the greatest talents the game has ever seen work their magic. Messi, Neymar and Mbappe have never been particularly interested in tracking back, so others had to pick up the slack.
Vitinha had plenty of "chores", as he put it, and his hard work didn't always get the credit it deserved. In the very same infamous game against Montpellier that Mbappe and Neymar squabbled over a spot-kick, the French forward also turned his back on the play at one point, simply because he hadn't received the ball from Vitinha.
It was a pathetic display of petulance, but also a perfect illustration of the consequences of over-indulging superstars - the main reason why Paris Saint-Germain's project repeatedly failed to deliver the Champions League title that club president Nasser Al-Khelaifi promised more than a decade ago.
