Rayan Cherki might well have been ambling into a game of five-a-side as he was brought on as a substitute at the MHP Arena in Stuttgart on Thursday night; looking around, directing a few assuring nods to his team-mates, drifting into a vague area of the pitch that looked about right.
But this was actually a senior international debut for the 21-year-old Frenchman, taking to the field alongside Kylian Mbappe, Lamine Yamal and Ousmane Dembele to name a few, and in a tournament semi-final, too. And that is pretty much how Cherki got to this point — looking remarkably unfazed, bobbing around with a shrug and a smirk, completely blowing games apart.
It’s difficult not to stray into hyperbole when attempting to describe Cherki’s unique approach to football, outrageously talented, but so bizarrely laid-back. Surrounded by pace and intensity in the second half of that Nations League semi-final against reigning European champions Spain, it was his casual gunslinging from deep which changed the game, playing a part in all three French goals on their comeback from four down with just over 20 minutes left to make it 5-4, and also teeing up another shot that hit the post.
As reported by David Ornstein in The Athletic’s DealSheet this week, Manchester City are increasingly hopeful of landing the Lyon playmaker. But for those wondering what all the excitement is about, last night’s game was the ideal introduction.
The exhibition began as Cherki replaced Michael Olise on 63 minutes, coming on alongside the electric Bradley Barcola in a desperate attempt to turn things around. At this point, France were 4-1 behind.
Within a minute, Cherki had found room on both sides of the pitch, first threading a pass to the fresh-legged Barcola on the left, before helping it through to Dembele on the right. Already, Didier Deschamps’ side looked to have more fluency with Cherki’s roaming creativity in their ranks than they did in over an hour without him.
But Spain soon extend their lead with a moment of brilliance from Yamal, and as the game gets back underway at 5-1, there’s a perceptible shift in the mood.
French arms are thrown into the air, heads are down, but that almost seems to click Cherki into gear, sensing the opportunity to impose his free-flowing, technical game on a team that were starting to lose their way.
Within moments, he finds himself in that pocket of space again down the left, before dropping out to receive the pass and rolling the ball through to Theo Hernandez in the box with a neat piece of skill.
The one-two doesn’t come off, but it’s the first sign of Cherki’s cheekiness, and the kind of invention that gets him out of tight spaces and opens up games.
Cherki then saunters over to the opposite side to take a corner with his supposedly weaker right foot, picking out Adrien Rabiot with a sweetly struck out-swinging ball, before producing his first momentum-shifting moment of the game.
After a neat backheel to get himself out of a tricky spot, he glides past Yamal and slides the ball through the defence and into the path of Dembele. The forward hardly expects the pass — look how flat-footed he is in frame two below — before jolting into life and just reaching the ball ahead of goalkeeper Unai Simon, hooking back onto the post from a tight angle.
Once again, that is on Cherki’s ‘weaker’ side, a defence-splitting pass that takes eight players out of the game.
Still not content, here he is dropping into midfield two minutes later, finding the space behind the Spanish lines before controlling, turning, and instinctively wrapping that right foot around a curling pass into the path of full-back Malo Gusto, careering into the space.
The aesthetic appeal of Cherki is like few other players in world football, fizzing with ideas, effortlessly destructive on the ball.
All of this, and we haven’t even got on to the goals yet.
Here’s what Cherki can do on his stronger side, controlling a bobbled pass from Mbappe on his right and slicing through the ball with a crisp volley on his left.
It’s a ludicrous way to score your first senior goal for your country, more incredible still with all that came before. He jogs back to the halfway line, a quick high-five with Rabiot on the way back, ready to go again.
A Goal of the Tournament contender from France debutant Rayan Cherki 🥵#UNLGOTR | @AlipayPlus pic.twitter.com/6fj4dABpGB
— UEFA EURO (@UEFAEURO) June 5, 2025
Five uneventful minutes pass by Cherki’s standards, but even then he was bright, first floating into defence to help with the build-up play, next toying with Dani Olmo and winning a pressure-relieving foul down the flanks.
Cherki is not the quickest, but give him freedom to find space and feed him the ball, and his instinctive dribbling ability kicks in; poking the ball around or through trailing legs, speeding up, slowing down, always finding a way to get his hips between the defender and the ball.
Cherki’s goal against Spain (Thomas Kienzle/AFP via Getty Images)
Despite the embarrassment of game-breaking talent, the French game plan quickly became about finding Cherki in those lucrative pockets. Watch again how he wanders towards the ball, checking over his shoulder repeatedly before receiving the pass, then pausing, spinning around on the ball, and digging out an incisive pass for Gusto once more down the flank.
The resulting cross is deflected into his own goal by Spain defender Dani Vivian, and with inspiration from Cherki once more, his country were within two of the reigning European champions.
Chaos ensued in the final five minutes as warning shots were fired at both ends, but Cherki continued to play the game at his pace, drifting from left to right to pick up the ball behind the opposition midfield.
After easing away from Martin Zubimendi with team-mate Lucas Hernandez on the ball, he receives the ball on the left flank, chops inside and sprays a pass out to Gusto with his right foot…
… only to pop up on that side himself barely 60 seconds later, this time cutting onto his left and delivering a teasing cross for Randal Kolo Muani to head home.
Any scepticism around Cherki surrounds his application off the ball, and while he stood out amid the offensive chaos late on, there were a handful of instances that suggested his defensive intensity may need to be tightened up.
In the lead up to Spain’s fifth goal, for example, he is loose as he steps up to apply pressure on Dean Huijsen, giving the 20-year-old centre-back plenty of time to find Zubimendi with a pass — the man he had just left behind.
With space to pick his head up, Zubimendi picks out Porro on the wing, who supplies the assist for Yamal’s second goal of the night.
Clearly, a performance like this is not the norm — Cherki isn’t always going to be able to waltz into such an open game and affect things so freely. But when a player of his ability is allowed to operate freely, play off his intuition and bring his natural, two-footed talent to the fore, things are going to happen in the final third.
Even the most dogmatic coaches would find it hard not be enchanted by Cherki with the ball at his feet. With such technical brilliance, it might just be worth the defensive trade-off to fit him into your team.
(Top photo: Kevin Voigt/GettyImages)
