Excl: Making the Vitor Roque jump – Ex-Brazil international Julio Baptista explains starlet’s strife | OneFootball

Interview conducted with Oddspedia

When Vitor Roque arrived at Barcelona, he wore a grin as bright as his predecessors. Just 18 years of age at the time, he was bought by a club that considered him the next in line to one of football’s most vaunted thrones, one that had accommodated the behinds of such mononyms as Neymar, Ronaldinho, Rivaldo, Ronaldo and Romario. Four months later, and Roque is a portrait of misery on the bench – he’s certainly been sitting long enough.

It didn’t start out like this. Xavi Hernandez began easing him into games, and Roque was off the bench in his first five Liga matches, and while he sat out their Supercup clashes and the Copa del Rey quarter-finals, those were not decisions that moved out of kilter with a process of adaptation to a new club, country and continent.

He was worth two points too, nodding home the sort of chance against Osasuna that fitted the number nine on his back, even if there is a one before it. A scabby but accurate finish into the corner against Alaves followed, this one even more poacher-like, but after his unfortunate sending off nine minutes later, the smell of discontent has seeped into the room.

It’s now five games without a single minute, three of which came with Barcelona’s season effectively declared null and void by that point. Some say he is too raw, he is still adapting – more so than in his first month? Xavi says the competition is better than him, his agent says it’s Xavi’s fault.

Former Brazil international and Real Madrid star Julio Baptista says it might not be so much the crossing of the Atlantic Ocean that has Roque feeling homesick, but rather the size of the ship, as he explained to Football España exclusively.

“A difference that I found, a very big difference, was the jump from a mid-level club to a big club, or one of the giants. The difference is the time that they give you to show your football. That time is necessary.”

“The teams lower down give you the chance to work in a calmer fashion, it gives you a chance to show your football, your work, allows the people to watch what you do. So your football comes out differently.”

“The player has to be smart. And often, when a player comes from South America, there is period of adaptation to the competition, to the way of playing, to the way of understanding football, and the player in many cases is not ready for that.”

Baptista came through the system at Sao Paulo, before moving to Sevilla at the age of 22. Nervion is not for the faint-hearted and neither is Morumbi in all honesty, but they aren’t quite the Santiago Bernabeu, which Baptista graced two years after arriving in Spain, but coming out of the home dressing room.

“That pressure that you have to perform immediately, you don’t have it [at a smaller club]. So when you arrive at a big club, the difference is that when you arrive at Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich or Manchester City, is that on day one when you arrive, you have to show it.”

Roque, after all, is a Brazil international too. Granted the leap from Latin America is large, but he did play a crucial role in a Copa Libertadores run to the final less than two years ago. Not as an impact player, but a trusted starter, assisting two of Athletico Paranaense’s three goals to see them past a dominant Palmeiras side in the semi-final.

Maybe Roque is not the second coming, but nobody at Barcelona is pretending that Marc Guiu, trusted ahead of him in a rare chance to start instead of Robert Lewandowski in March, is that either. Perhaps with the initial adrenaline wearing off, his football is coming out differently. Baptista has recently left Real Valladolid’s Promesas side after more than two years, having made the transition into management, and says that often coaches do not feel able to provide the time necessary.

“So when that happens, when a player needs more time, often a manager doesn’t have the time to wait for the player, the player doesn’t fit the profile that they are looking for, and they look to other players, or another type of player.”

If there is one thing that Xavi has been open and honest about over the last four months, whether by design or not, is that he has been feeling the pressure. To borrow a line from his fiercest opponent, Carlo Ancelotti recently explained Arda Guler’s lack of minutes by telling the media that ‘Real Madrid pay me to win matches, not to develop young players’. Xavi’s role has become both in recent years, but either way, Roque has not been given the time to show his football.