Vinicius Junior wants to evolve into Real legend

Vinicius Junior (left) scored last season's Champions League winner

Vinicius Junior is planning on "staying around here for a long time" and becoming a Real Madrid legend.

The Brazil winger is only 22 but has already garnered hero status with the only goal of last season's Champions League final win over Liverpool.

And he has endeared himself to the Spanish public further by recently acquiring dual citizenship.

At Real's media conference ahead of Tuesday's opening Champions League group game against Celtic, Vinicius was reminded that he received much criticism, even ridicule, when he initially arrived from Flamengo four years ago.

"Hopefully, at this club, I'm going to go down as a legend," he responded. "I can stay here for a long time and go down in the record books like Karim Benzema, Marcelo, Tony Kroos and Luka Modric."

Asked if he now considered himself among the five best players in the world, he replied: "I will let the people decide that. I feel like I'm in a good place at the moment, but I'm keeping my head cool and I've got my feet on the ground."

Vinicius has already added three La Liga goals to his total of 20 for last season but insisted "I need to improve everything" as "I want to keep evolving every day".

Now he is relishing the "tough challenge" of showing the latest version of his blossoming talent at a packed Celtic Park.