The challenge comes in. Neymar crumples on the edge of the box. Free kick.
As Neymar gets gingerly to his feet, Edinson Cavani is already strolling over, marking out his territory. Dani Alves picks up the ball. Cavani tries to grab it. Alves holds it out of his reach. Neymar steps between them and takes the ball, ignoring the pained chagrin on Cavani's face and forcing a good save from Olympique Lyon's Anthony Lopes.
A few minutes later, Paris Saint-Germain win a penalty. Cavani gets the ball this time, and places it on the spot. Neymar walks up to him and demands the ball. Cavani waves him away with an angry swat of the hand, steps up, and misses.MINDSET OF THE MODERN FOOTBALLER
And so began the sort of confected drama that in the absence of genuine sporting intrigue - Paris Saint-Germain are already as short as 1/50 to win the French league title this season - can engulf a club for months.
There were reports in France that the spat carried on into the dressing room afterwards; reports in Spain said that Neymar has demanded Cavani be sold.
TRUE OR NOT? LARGELY IMMATERIAL
These days, football clubs are advertising spaces as much as athletic enterprises, and they run on their storylines.
The really interesting thing here, though, is what it tells us about the mindset of the modern super-footballer, in an age when the game seems in ever greater, ever more orgasmic thrall to the individual than ever before.
And so we should avoid the temptation to view the clash between Cavani and Neymar as a playground squabble, a juvenile tiff between two pampered multimillionaires. In a way, both were acting entirely rationally.Some years ago, someone uploaded onto YouTube a compilation of every free kick David Beckham ever scored. And what I found most arresting about it was that Beckham's ball-striking technique remained virtually unchanged over the years. What changed was the theatre around it.
Early Beckham simply ran up, wrapped his boot around the ball, and charged off in whatever direction took his fancy: the bare, spontaneous simplicity of a kid doing something well.
By the time he was tucking them away for LA Galaxy many eons later, however, things were different. Beckham was a star now: the most famous, most beheld face in sport. He knew it, too.
And so he would pause at the top of his run-up: hold the pose, survey the scene. When the whistle blew, he would continue to make us wait, building the anticipation. And yet when he scored, the celebration itself was muted: the regal stride, the outstretched arms, the knowing smirk.There was no spontaneity here: all was performance, rendition, strut, a set-piece in the most literal sense.
Consciously or not, Beckham was one of the first footballers to recognise the dramatic visual potential of the set-piece.
It is, after all, the only point in a game when the action stops and all the focus is on a single player. The taker commands the stage, and therefore the gaze. Time is in their gift.
Cristiano Ronaldo may not have happened upon his iconic free-kick pose deliberately, but do not doubt for a second that he knows what he is doing. For a fleeting moment, the set-piece allows the footballer to occupy the same devotional space as a great actor: to luxuriate in the act of being seen.ATTRACTING TOP PLAYERS
At its highest levels, football is not simply about accumulating goals and wins, but attention, screen time, recognition. Wanting to be seen is not simply an expression of narcissism or self-regard - though neither are a hindrance - but a route to marketability, celebrity, legacy.
It is why so many players have a Ballon d'Or clause written into their contracts. It is why Manchester United had no trouble attracting top players even without Champions League football.
And it is why, slowly and by degrees, a minor detail like set-piece responsibilities have assumed an almost totemic importance. So when Neymar and Cavani are tussling over a free-kick, then, what we are really seeing is a tussle for the spotlight, for the camera lens, for eyes.
And Cavani will now know, if he does not already, that a scrap for attention with Neymar is only ever going to have one winner. - The Daily Telegraph, London..