Rayan Cherki Is A Human Highlight Reel

Rayan Cherki is not the best soccer player in the world. In fact, he's not even a locked-in, sure-fire starter for either of the two teams he currently plays for, Manchester City and France. But though there are certainly several other players who make a bigger, more consistent impact on their teams' performances, I don't think anyone in the sport today can match the volume of spine-tingling, head-smacking, astonishment-inducing plays Cherki so effortlessly produces when he is on his game.

Because I decided to spend my Sunday afternoon watching Barcelona Femení dropkick the remaining teeth out of Real Madrid's skull, I had to miss the France vs. Colombia friendly that started at the same time. While I do not regret my choice, it was a shame that my viewing of the latest gruesome Clásico beatdown meant I couldn't also get to see the much more elegant display in Maryland. Aside from the cackling Blaugrana fans, almost every tweet I scrolled past during that aforementioned time slot on Sunday featured messages of almost coital bliss inspired by how France was playing, and specifically what Cherki was doing. Though I was bummed not to see the Cherki show live, in a match that ended in a comprehensive 3-1 France win, I knew I'd have a individual compilation to sink my teeth in later, and neither the comp makers nor Cherki himself disappointed.

There's no player right now more uniquely suited for memorialization via individual highlight reel than Cherki. His irrepressible creativity and his craving for collaboration mean he always looks to place himself in the heart of his team's action, and, when there, to try and elevate that action to its most dazzling level possible. When you factor in his freakish technique with both feet and his love for wowing the crowd, you can see why fireworks are always erupting around him, which makes for quite a show when it's all clipped together.

Part of what's so cool about Cherki is how intentional his way of playing is. As we've pointed out before when posting about the crazy things the Frenchman can do, how he plays is very much linked to how he thinks about himself and the game. His comments after the Colombia game once again made this clear. "I keep it simple," Cherki said in a postgame interview with French TV station TF1. "I know that opposing teams are lying in wait for me, so the only thing I care about is ensuring that my teammates and the fans leave the stadium with a smile on their faces. Whether I score or provide an assist is the last of my concerns. I genuinely want Marcus (Thuram), Maghnes (Akliouche), Désiré (Doué), Kylian (Mbappé), Michael (Olise), and Ousmane (Dembélé)—whenever they play alongside me—to enjoy themselves as much as possible."

That last point, that Cherki sees it as his duty to make his teammates have fun, is one that often gets overlooked in discussions about flashy plays of the kind Cherki frequents in. "Individualism" in soccer is often seen as something disreputably selfish, like one player putting his own ego ahead of the needs of the team, which often leads to mistakes. In reality, I think it's telling that many of the biggest so-called individualists in the game's history—think Neymar and Ronaldinho as two canonical examples—are fundamentally collaboratists in nature. Your Cherkis, Neymars, and Ronaldinhos all know that the most special of plays are ones that involve teamwork. After all, a needle-threading through ball needs a runner to connect to, a fancily flicked one-two is only as good as its return pass, and the only thing prettier than a solo dribble is two or more dribbles weaving with and between each other, the players sharing the ball and sharing the glory and the team itself almost always sharing the spoils of what those radiant but also wickedly effective "individual" plays so often lead to.

Cherki plays as if he has an image of the entire match in his mind, and his intentions are to manipulate that image in its entirety. He knows he can't do it alone, so he always looks to bring others in on it. The effect is necessarily infectious, which is another way that his "individualism" is hardly individualistic. Seeing Cherki slide you a cutting, first-time pass with the side of his heel and then burst into space looking for a return basically compels you to match his confidence, inspiration, and talent, which can lift the entire team's spirits and performance while demoralizing the opponent. (Remember this, Pep, before you go tsk-tsking your star man for his audacity again.) It is also just flat-out fun, for spectators and players alike.

So yeah, Cherki may not be the single best player alive, and the 22-year-old still needs to work on becoming more consistent and more productive if he is to become as great a player as he could be. But the things Cherki does, and what he then gets his teammates to do, are themselves some of the best of what soccer can offer, and are what make the sport so great to watch and to play. His aptitude for that stuff makes his every game must-see viewing—preferably live and in total, though the highlights too are sure to delight in their own right.