“If that had been done by some other player, we would have been talking about it for a very long time,” Sporting CP goalkeeper Antonio Adan said. They were were talking about it for quite a while anyway.
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“Magic,” Record newspaper said. “Artistic,” O Jogo went for. “Transcendent,” A Bola called it, the moment when 39,899 people got to their feet, unable to believe what they had just seen but really very glad they did: a Maradona in their midst. The kind of moment that unfolds, those watching becoming witnesses, drawn towards it, destined to always talk of it. Each part more absurd, building on the last: He didn’t?! He hasn’t?! He couldn’t, could he?
In the end, he couldn’t. Not score, at least. Which, somehow, might even have made it better. Alright, not better exactly but you get the point. If it was art, by not ending in a goal it became art for its own sake. And suddenly everyone was talking about it. Transcendent maybe really is the word; it transcended this place and transcended the game, this goal that wasn’t. Those inside the place felt it; you’ve probably seen it by now. When Marcus Edwards, the kid they used to call Mini Messi, was Maradonian.
There had been a roar when, during Sporting’s meeting with Tottenham Hotspur this week, Edwards produced a sharp spin and fast feet. But this was different. This was more like an oh, an ah and what the heck, breath held, supporters left mouths open and standing to deliver an ovation.
“You see him there and you think ‘he can’t get out of there’ and he gets out,” one report ran. “You see him run for the ball and think ‘he can’t reach that,’ and he reaches it.”
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Edwards picked the ball up in the middle of the pitch, turned and beat Eric Dier, not once but twice, going past him to one side and coming back past him the other, beyond Ivan Perisic too, hips swinging. He played it to Francisco Trincao and got it back, glided past Cristian Romero and then, five yards out … missed. The ball, nudged towards goal from so, so close somehow went past the post, off Hugo Lloris who it hit twice.
“He almost scored a historic golazo,” Adan said, giggling as he pictured it again. It was one of those: one of those when you feel like laughing.
It wasn’t just one moment, either. Not just his 15 minutes of fame — and consistency is the challenge, of course. All game, Edwards was superb, just as he had been in the opening gameweek, a 3-0 win at Eintracht Frankfurt when he had provided an assist and scored a goal, making it three of each in seven games. This was special, though: against the club which he had joined aged 8 but where, speaking of those minutes, he had played just 15 in the League Cup against Gillingham.
“He is a very good prospect and, potentially, he can be a top player but we need to be patient and tell him that he has a lot of talent, enough talent to be a top player, a great player, but now it’s how he builds his future. That’s very important,” Pochettino had said back then, on the eve of his professional debut, his first and last game for Spurs.
There was an injury and Pochettino also later admitted that there were issues with authority and behaviour. There have been suggestions that Edwards is an own man, shy maybe or distant, not always as engaged with others as they would like — and that’s something which was echoed in Lisbon. This was about the person as much as the player.
It always is. If that was apparent then, listening to those around him, it remains so now. How could it be otherwise? “We’re people, and that gets forgotten: it’s like we’re machines and we have to go out there and do what fans and journalists want us to do,” Adan said on Tuesday night, as he discussed his teammate. “We often forget that personal element.”
That is always there; it never entirely goes away. “He took a took a little time to adapt to Portugal, but he has adjusted,” his Amorim added. “Lisbon is not London; it’s different and all that has an impact but he has the talent. He can get much better, he can even get into the England team. He just needs to focus more — not just on the training but everything around it. Football is not just matches, it is everything in between. I trust him a lot, I know he can grow a lot.”
When he was asked about that claim on Tuesday night, Edwards insisted he wasn’t even thinking about it. But he would like to play for England? “Yeah, it would be nice,” he said and soon others were repeating it, having just watched this English kid who moved abroad tearing up his old team. They wondered what might have been and what still could be.
