The Santiago Bernabeu is already bouncing when Rodrygo Silva de Goes gets the ball at feet seven minutes into Real Madrid's game against Athletic Bilbao. Brahim Diaz has just swept the ball across from the right flank to the left, and with a touch Rodrygo is off. It begins slowly, that touch knocking the ball forward, Athletic's defenders furiously backtracking as Madrid send runners forward either side of Rodrygo.
He looks up, sees his options, and uses them as cover. Head down, he cuts in, flowing into the space that's been opened up by Jude Bellingham's run dragging away Benat Pardos from defensive midfield. As soon as he gets into the pocket, just off centre, right on the D outside the box, he lets fly.
If you pause at that moment, you can see the defence is decently well established. There's one in Bilbao white right behind him, in case he decides to fake and chop back. There are two in front inside the box in case he decides to run further in, among them Pardos who's switched from covering Bellingham to closing any angle to the near post. A fourth is right in front of him, closing him down with rapid intensity. The goalkeeper, Julen Agirrezabala, is positioned well, in the centre of the goal.
Delay the shot a bit, and it gets blocked. Go near post, it gets blocked. The one place he can hit it is the top far corner... and that's where he hits it, with incredible power and accuracy. Top bins. Unsavable. 1-0 Madrid.
Rodrygo doesn't do this normally. Mostly because he doesn't have to.
The flamboyant goalscoring is usually done by his partner-in-crime Vinicius Jr., a compatriot signed at the same time as him, for the same fee (45 million Euros) who's taken over the mantle as the man at the Bernabeu from the legend who wore #7 before him. Vinicius takes the headlines always, his blazing brilliance in-your-face, the palpable electricity of his football unignorable. And it's not just Vinicius -- at Madrid there's Jude Bellingham and his incredible aura, at Brazil there's the all-time greatness of Neymar Jr.
So Rodrygo, him of standard hairstyle, and quiet unintrusive running, usually goes under the radar.
For a long time at Madrid he was seen as an impact player, this teenage phenom who scored on debut for the club in every competition, this super-sub who scored the key goals that propelled Madrid to their latest Champions League triumph.
In fact, it's not until after Karim Benzema left for Saudi Arabia that he's become a nailed-on starter. Even then, though, he usually starts on the right of the floating front two that Carlo Ancelotti loves these days: and from the right his primary task is often to create (either goals or space) for Bellingham and Vinicius. He's become the master of the pre-assist.
Put on the left, though, Rodrygo is a different beast. He doesn't get to play there often because Vinicius is best-in-the-world class down the left, but whenever given a chance he rarely disappoints. Sample this stat, from ESPN's SIG: When Vinicius hasn't played this season, Rodrygo has scored 8 goals and given 2 assists in 14 games. When Vinicius has, that number is 7 and 6 in 28.
That point keeps circling back: It's not that he can't; it's that he very often doesn't need to. Played down the left on Sunday, Rodrygo ran the show.
It wasn't just the stunning opener, either. Three minutes into the second half, he set off on a diagonal run that took from the left touchline near the centreline to the edge of the box, where he slipped in Diaz with an incisive pass: Diaz hit the post. The run, and the pass... defence-splitting.
In the 73rd minute, Rodrygo would be fed in by Bellingham and he would, with the minimum of fuss, twist right back Daniel Vivian's blood with a mini fake so subtle you may have to look twice to notice it from afar, and wrong-foot Agirrezabala with a quick finish to the near post.
That goal put a tight game to bed, Rodrygo rising up to the occasion once again. He's now in the middle of his best domestic goalscoring season (10 in LaLiga - the first time he's hit double digits in the league) but is still only the third highest scorer on the team (after Bellingham and Vinicius). That's the nature of the gig, Rodrygo knows it now.
So he'll keep on doing what he does whenever he gets the chance to: making the sensational look as simple as he did on Sunday. And for doing that, he takes our Moment of the Weekend.