It may be difficult to swallow the players of DFCO Dijon, a little more stuck since Saturday in the abyss of the Ligue 1 standings. But the lawn of the Gaston-Gérard stadium does indeed have restorative and comforting virtues.
It allowed Rafinha to get his head out of the water and find this ground that he had been watching out of the corner of his eye since the arrival of Mauricio Pochettino.
While he had only had the right to leave the cellar for 55 short minutes in two months, Rafinha took a magnificent breath of fresh air in Burgundy.
As a revenge on his start to the year weighed down by the Covid and what was beginning to look like a lack of consideration, the ex-Barça midfielder demonstrated that he could don the costume of "the safe guy".
After twenty minutes played against Nîmes at the beginning of February then a good half hour against Monaco last weekend, the Brazilian has in any case signed a winning return.
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Even if she did not bear the name, her first tenure of the year 2021 was indeed weighted down with the passing exams.
In the absence of Neymar and Verratti, the two leaders of animation in the mind of Pochettino, Rafinha could not miss the risk, no doubt, of returning to the bench.
He crossed the obstacle without blinking, in a completely different style than his two partners.
"With training, he will regain his level"
More sober, it is very soft, almost in caresses, that Rafinha went through the match.
In this 4-2-3-1 pattern that he was in charge of animating with an old-fashioned number 10 role, the Brazilian swallowed kilometers of ground, often unhooked to offer solutions and tried to create offsets with his left paw.
Quick in his decisions, alert eyes and capable of playing in small spaces, he especially made his technical accuracy speak by favoring simplicity and exchanges with one or two touches of balls.
At the heart of the game, the Sao Paulo native managed more than 93% of the 75 passes he made.
Two of them weighed heavily on the scoreboard.
The first, diverted, gave birth to the penalty caused by Thilo Kehrer and transformed by Mbappé (32nd).
The second, blind and perfectly balanced, allowed the top scorer in Ligue 1 to increase his capital goal to 18 (51st).
And if he sometimes lacked rhythm, the Parisian environment has nevertheless shown a large volume of play for a player lacking competition.
“But that's normal,” explained Mauricio Pochettino, who kept talking to him during the match, he suffered from the Covid.
We can't say that the year has started in the best possible way for him.
But I'm happy with his performance.
Little by little, it regains its shape.
Today he has shown his full commitment.
With training, he will regain his level.
"And without a doubt, another status in the Parisian workforce ...