The world’s most expensive footballer lit up Wembley at times until England’s SBOBET dogged resistance meant his influence faded as the game went on
With 23 minutes gone on a room-temperature night at Wembley Neymar did something beautiful, delicate and almost entirely at odds with the rest of this game.
Taking the ball with a knot of white shirts in front of him Neymar eased into a tiny green pocket of space and produced a ludicrous pass, raising his right foot at an oblique angle to generate backspin and flicking off his little toe a perfectly floated ball between two defenders for Gabriel Jesus to wriggle in behind and almost get a shot on goal.A bit later Neymar nutmegged Jake Livermore near the centre circle, SBOBET drawing wild, squealing cheers. But then it was a very funny nutmeg, so obviously telegraphed it might have been the punchline to a rambling Ronnie Corbett armchair monologue.
As Brazil lost the ball Neymar tracked back and took possession from Marcus Rashford by his own goal line, slid past Kyle Walker with no discernible shift of feet then covered 60 yards like a drop of rain running down a window. For all the money, the baggage, the celebrity persona, this is a genuinely effortless footballer.But then, this is how Southgate’s England have begun to define themselves, a team of hair-shirt defensive diligence, reflecting the manager’s own restrained, meticulous, oddly chastened persona. Across the past six hours and four matches home and away, the combined score reads 2-0 to England. One of those goals was a penalty.Not that England were at any stage beguiled, or shaken from their furiously dogged defensive shape on a night when the most expensive footballer in the world was only ever allowed to decorate rather than dominate.SBOBET
