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'Very Neymar, very Ronaldinho': A Brazilian take on Rayan Cherki's Man City vs. Arsenal showboating as Selecao face France

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'Very Neymar, very Ronaldinho': A Brazilian take on Rayan Cherki's Man City vs. Arsenal showboating as Selecao face France originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

Much of the fallout from last weekend's Carabao Cup final between Manchester City and Arsenal was dominated by discussion about Rayan Cherki.

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City won the first major piece of silverware of the English football season, thanks to a quickfire brace after the hour from Nico O'Reilly.

The score remained 2-0 at fulltime but, not long after City doubled their lead, France playmaker Cherki took the ball on the left wing and started doing kick-ups.

"I think it's a little bit too early for that, if I'm being honest," said Gary Neville on Sky Sports' commentary. "That was a little bit arrogant."

On the touchline, City boss Pep Guardiola ruefully shook his head, and the next time Cherki got the ball, Arsenal defender Ben White clattered into him to earn a booking.

MORE:Will Pep Guardiola stay at Man City?

One commonly spotted take afterwards was to say good on White for kicking a player who dared to do a bit of showy skill. Is this the way we should really think about these things, when players like Cherki are the reason we fall in love with football and pay our money in the first place? Nowadays, you can't move for people lamenting the death of flair among the alleged automatons of the modern game.

"I'd like people to say, 'Robots are good, but magic is better'," Cherki told L'Equipe earlier this month, prior to his Arsenal horseplay. "Playing a perfect match, with 99% successful passes, is good, but producing one with five or six flashes of genius will always be better."

Still, the show of scant regard for opponents overstepped an invisible but acknowledged line for many. Having covered the game at Wembley Stadium, with all the pomp and ceremony that comes with a showpiece final in England, the thought occurred that perhaps we were all just being a bit too, well, British about this.

Is Cherki too much for us prim and proper folks? What would they think of him in Brazil, the home of Jogo Bonito, for example? Well, considering the Selecao face France in a friendly international on Thursday, it felt like the perfect time to canvas opinion. 

Without further ado, here's Diogo Magri, chief editor for The Sporting News in Brazil, to give his thoughts on Cherki's keepy-uppy. It turns out we can be grateful White and the Arsenal players didn't launch a full-scale riot.

'Very Neymar, very Ronaldinho': A Brazilian take on Rayan Cherki

Recently, I read a Brazilian Manchester City fan joking (was he?) about Rayan Cherki being the best footballer in the world. It wasn’t about him being as decisive as recent Ballon d'Or winners, but about him being a rare kind of player in today’s game: technically gifted, expressive, and not easily confined within rigid tactical systems or positional discipline. Very Ronaldinho, very Neymar, very… Brazilian.

I was reminded of that when I saw the tricks he performed with the ball (we call it "embaixadinhas" in Brazil) in the closing minutes of the Carabao Cup final. It's fair to say his attitude had a certain Brazilian flavour. It isn't fair, though, to suggest that Ben White's reaction would have been any different in Brazil. Another memory came to mind as well: a similar episode in 1999, during a final between Corinthians and Palmeiras, Sao Paulo's biggest derby.

On the 75-minute mark, with the game tied at 2-2 and Palmeiras needing three goals to force extra time, Edilson Capetinha (whose nickname translates loosely as "little devil", which tells you plenty about the kind of player he was), from Corinthians, began the embaixadinhas in his own half. Paulo Nunes and Junior went straight for his legs, and chaos followed. Crazy scenes: punches were thrown everywhere, players ran for the dressing rooms, and Galvao Bueno — perhaps the most iconic voice in Brazilian sports broadcasting — could be heard shouting: "Edilson shouldn't have done that!" An epic moment in Brazilian football.

Edilson went on to win the World Cup with Brazil in 2002 (Junior was in the squad, too!), but to this day he is remembered above all for the trouble he caused that afternoon. Nunes and Junior are not. Memphis Depay did something similar more recently in another Corinthians–Palmeiras final. The result was the same: controversy, confrontation, and plenty of criticism.

Cherki is not (yet) well known enough in Brazil for last Sunday's incident to have sparked a debate around here. If he were, my guess is that the reaction would be 50/50. There will always be those in Brazil who defend joyful, expressive players. But it is no longer true to say that Brazilians view football in the way the country became famous for. For many, the national team is not winning World Cups anymore, not because they don't play as Brazil should, but because they try too hard to play as Brazil should. The majority opinion, for example, is that Brazil should have been more cautious against Germany in the infamous 7-1, showing respect to a superior rival even at home, or that the team wasn't supposed to attack that much after taking the lead against Croatia in extra time at Qatar 2022.

A rather British point of view, it must be said.

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