Six years ago, Kylian Mbappe reposted on Rayan Cherki with a smiley and caption: “Don’t talk to him about his age too much!” Cherki was only 16 then, and had netted a brace of goals and assists, for Lyon against Nantes, sending the first firm signals of his precocious gifts towards the world at large. He looked beyond his age; not so much by the stubble and defined facial features he then spotted, but by the wisdom he showed with the ball on his floating feet.
Mbappe, an early-bloomer himself, was not the first to positively wonder about his compatriot of Italian-Algerian descent raised in busy Lyon. He was only six years old and knocking the ball on an athletics track adjacent to the football pitch his elder brothers trained when a local coach Roger Martinez saw him and stood transfixed with the tricks he performed.
“That’s where I saw him for the first time,” Martinez told Bleacher Report. “He was playing with a ball while he watched his brother train. And I asked myself, ‘Who is this monster? How can a six-year-old kid do so much with the ball at his feet?’ He told him to come and start training at his local amateur club AS Saint-Priest. More pleasurable shock followed: “There was nothing I could teach him about how to play football. He was a kid who knew how to do everything.”
The only dilemma was where to play him. He could score and create goals; he was wondrously two-footed; could play on the flanks, at the centre, as a playmaker, winger and forward. He was so good everywhere that different managers would use him differently as his career soared. In Lyon, jersey numbers could not signify his role. He wore 18, 10, 9 and then began to wear 18 again. He left even the unmatched tactical shape-shifter Pep Guardiola astounded. The legendary manager would say: “There are moments that I just want to shout at him, and there are moments I want to kiss him.” His flourishes and indulgences incensed him but his grandeur and outcome marvelled him. A system disruptor or a chaos agent, antithetical to the Guardiolisma ideals of positional and structural conformity. He admitted after Cherki’s spectacular goal against Arsenal last season: “I have to allow him to express his incredible talent.”
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It’s tempting to call him a throwback, a time-traveller to an era where structures had not suffocated displays of individual flash, even showboating at times, when football and footballers could self-indulge a bit; when spontaneity trumped over rigorously-instilled patterns. To put it simply, Cherki is arguably the most watchable player on the planet, a thrillingly volatile footballer that makes even the non-fan get hooked to the screen. Guardiola, Rodri and Bernardo Silva have gone, but Cherki makes watching City pleasurable again. He was clearly their most influential player in the first two games (two game-changing assists with Bournemouth in the opener).
Rayan Cherki celebrates his goal with teammate Erling Haaland against Crystal Palace. (AP)
Watch those goals against Crystal Palace. Watch the run for his first goal. He gathers the pass with the shin of his right foot, then brushes aside three onrushing defenders, from three different sides without spreading a single crease on his shirt, slides past the fourth one and then pokes the ball with his left foot. He can walk on water; maybe even on air. Watch the ball past the goalkeeper, rolling without a scent of power.
Even when he stirs power, it does not look savage. He imparted incredible power onto the shot that led to his second goal, but the audience could trace its flight without pausing and rewinding. The whip and curl were gorgeous in its journey.
Between, before and after the two goals, there were moments his magical string strummed falsetto notes, when the tricks gloriously failed, and when City manager Enzo Maresca fumed. But that is part of the Cherki package, the flaws that make him even more fascinating. He is Maresca’s most precious asset before the rejigged band settles down into a coherent firm. His manager at Lyon, Rudi Garcia once said: “He has a strong ability to beat players but uses it too much and not especially wisely.” There will be days when Cherki would be painted as a raw, undisciplined maverick, just another cheeky kid with jinking feet.
Cherki as a finished product is a daunting thought for defenders, but even a semi-finished product could embarrass them. The technical prowess with both feet apart, the Frenchman has a layered and subtle game. He switches his tempo, quick pauses and sudden bursts of speed, which imbalances defenders; uses his lithe frame to spin and swerve past his markers and uses nearly every part of his body to conjure the unthinkable move or pass, and maintains supreme control in tight space. Garcia gushes over the weight of his passes to the final third and intelligence: “He is an excellent reader of game, sees three -four ahead. The touch, the turn, everything is smooth. He must be aware that he still has huge room for improvement.”
And he is only 23. But just don’t remind him of his age.
