Edinson Cavani has always been a player for the big occasion, someone who shines brightest when the pressure is on and he’s centre stage.
He scored in his first Serie A match for Palermo against Fiorentina in 2007, a mere 15 minutes after stepping onto the pitch as a second-half substitute.
A year later, Cavani found the back of the net in his national team debut, helping Uruguay earn a 2-2 draw against Colombia. Over the past two seasons with Napoli, he has recorded hat tricks in high-profile Serie A encounters against teams the calibre of Juventus, AC Milan and Lazio.
So it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to see Cavani, nicknamed El Matador, take the bull by the horns and score a brace in Napoli’s 2-1 win over visiting Manchester City Tuesday in the UEFA Champions League.
The big story of Matchday 5, aside from Cypriot club APOEL advancing to the knockout stage, was Cavani’s master-class performance against the Premiership leaders in a game that the Neapolitans absolutely had to win.
A loss would have kept the Italians third in their group behind City and Bayern Munich, leaving them on the brink of elimination heading into the final round of group-stage games. But like he’s done so many times before, the 24-year-old Uruguayan found a way to score, breaching City’s miserly defence not once, but twice.
The goals were hardly highlight reel material, unlike his effort against Fiorentina four years ago when he scored on a spectacular volley that bore a bit of a resemblance to Marco van Basten’s famous wonderstrike for Holland against the Soviet Union in the Euro ’88 final.
Indeed, both of Cavani’s goals were classic goal-poachers efforts, and while far from aesthetically appealing, they still had genuine beauty to them.
Seventeen minutes into the contest, Cavani did what he does best when he honed his predatory inside the penalty area. The Uruguayan hit man got onto the end of a Napoli corner kick by flicking the ball with an expertly timed header that beat goalkeeper Joe Hart at the near-post
With the game tied 1-1 early in the second half and the result still hanging in the balance, Cavani struck again — this time he collected a pull-back pass from Andrea Dossena and snuck a shot underneath Hart into the back of the net.
Game done and dusted.
“Two stupid goals. We knew that Cavani goes to the first post, and for the second goal he was alone,” Mancini said after the game.
The implication from Mancini being that had his defenders been more alert, they would have snuffed out both of Cavani’s scoring chances.
But such an analysis doesn’t give the Napoli striker his proper due.
Cavani’s finishing ability garners attention from pundits, but it’s his movement off the ball that is especially dangerous, as City discovered to their peril.
On the first goal, Cavani gave his defensive marker the slip (in this case, no less of a player than Yaya Toure) and ghosted in at the near post before nodding it home. And while it’s true he wasn’t marked on the second goal, Cavani still had plenty of work to do. His sublime finish, a driving low volley from just inside the box, provided ample evidence of his technical expertise.
Maybe it was all a ploy by Mancini, because in the aftermath of Tuesday’s game, Cavani has been linked to City in a possible winter transfer move.
Could Mancini’s words all be a ruse, a feeble attempt to drive down the transfer price of the Uruguayan? Maybe. But if City is serious about procuring Cavani from Napoli’s vice-like grip, it’s going to cost them.