Joao Neves vs Toulouse
For Paris Saint-Germain in 2025, the stars aligned, fate converged and magic happened. A year of moment after moment, each unforgettable.
Barcelona bittersweet heart Ousmane Dembele was relaunched as a French national treasure, but others sometimes shone even brighter under the spotlight, for one game at least. In a Ligue 1 fixture on a baking hot August evening in Toulouse, the referee awarded four penalties, PSG won 6-3, yet the headlines belonged to Joao Neves, whose �50.71m move from Benfica to Paris Saint-Germain in the 2024/25 summer window makes him one of the top 100 most expensive players of all time, largely for what he did in the first 15 minutes.
Thats what happens when a central midfielder scores two overhead kicks in quick succession. The pint-sized Portuguese even had the taste for a third, rifling the ball top bins and wheeling away with three fingers raised to the fans: a little bit of Luis Figo circa Euro 2000, with a touch of Jose Mourinho at his most dastardly. Hat-tricks happen, but this was one of the most sublime in recent memory. Take a bow, Joao.
Declan Rice vs Real Madrid
Of all the things the Goonersphere expected from Declan Rice, becoming a free-kick virtuoso overnight certainly wasnt on the radar. To say that Rice was faultless in both legs of Arsenals Champions League quarter-final against Real Madrid is to underrate him.
The first leg, especially, though, was perfection with boundless contradictions: relentless yet icy calm, mature having never been on such a stage, leading the build-up and forcing Thibaut Courtois into a world-class save before half-time. He was everywhere, yet impossible to mark.
And then came the two second-half free-kicks that catapulted Arsenal into a 2-0 lead from which Real Madrid never recovered. If the first had an aesthetic elegance to its bow, curving outside the post to in, the second had no such grace a pinpoint projectile, cast with pure adrenaline still coursing through his veins after the first.
The image of Rice of the Redeemer, arms out, defying gravity as he perched on the hoardings, will be remembered for decades. It was the greatest night the Emirates has witnessed so far in its near 20-year history.
Desire Doue vs Inter
PSGs Champions League final annihilation of the Nerazzurri in Munich was enough to topple a civilisation, let alone a dynasty. It felt cruel, surreal a little naive, even, of Les Parisiens to make eternal enemies of a European giant, surely scarred for life by such a razing all with Desir Dou as the architect-in-chief, swinging from Luis Enriques wrecking ball.
For four years, Simone Inzaghis Inter had been a Rubiks Cube of movement centre-backs overlapping and midfielders building play. It took Dou just minutes to crack them, drifting through their backline like smoke at the Allianz Arena, on the left to tee up Achraf Hakimi for the opener, and bulleting down the opposite flank to double PSGs lead within 20 minutes.
From backheels and pirouettes to sweeping home his second just after the hour mark, the teenage idol was majestic and merciless, breaking Italian hearts with little more than a shrug. Inter heaved to get within a shirt pull of him. It was Roadrunner doing laps around a pack of coyotes. By the end, Inter had been beaten 5-0, a record margin in a Champions League final.
Showmen are usually warmer than Dou Ronaldinho only mugged you with a smile, Jay-Jay Okocha would wink when he nutmegged you. Yet when LEquipe gushed to award PSGs latest prince a lesser-spotted 10/10, it was for both the flair and the fury. Dous eve of destruction was nothing more than a walk in the park on that evening, he was still three days short of his 20th birthday. Chilling.
