The second half began, and I pushed Rodríguez deeper, into the pockets between Brighton's midfield and defence, the spaces they couldn't cover without breaking their shape.
He drifted, floated, found half-yards of space that shouldn't have existed. Brighton's midfielders didn't know whether to follow him or hold their positions, and that indecision that half-second of hesitation was all a player of his quality needed.
The breakthrough came in the sixty-second minute. It wasn't a sweeping team move. It was a moment of pure, individual genius that no amount of defensive organisation could prevent.
Neves played a sharp, vertical pass into Rodríguez's feet. He was thirty yards from goal, surrounded by three Brighton players. There was no obvious pass. There was no obvious shot. So he invented one.
