Marcus Rashford shuts out the noise with brilliant brace for Barcelona: UCL Moment of the Week

The score reads Newcastle United 0-0 Barcelona. The time, 57:06. Barca win the ball just outside their own box when Fermin Lopez bullies Bruno Guimaraes off it. He then passes it two yards back to Frenkie De Jong. The most unhurried footballer in the world takes a touch and releases Jules Kounde into space down the right. Kounde immediately plays it up the channel to Raphinha who takes it mid-stride and accelerates forward. He races at Dan Burn, sits him down with a wiggle of his hips, gets to the byline but is quickly closed down by Tino Livramento. Knowing the initial counterattack is done for, he holds onto the ball before giving it back to De Jong, who's now calmly jogged upfield. Another quick touch and pass finds Kounde, who shifts it to his left and chips a ball onto the area where the penalty spot is. There, having run all the way with Raphinha and now lurking in the box, is Marcus Rashford.

He's stayed still, allowing the Newcastle defence to move around him, and that stillness means Sven Botman has overrun him and left him just a little too much space. As the ball floats in, though, there's still much to do: the distance is great, the power in the cross too low. From that position, a header has an xG of 0.04.

*****

It had been a tough summer for Rashford. A tough year, in fact. After being inexplicably sidelined by the new Manchester United manager Ruben Amorim, he'd found himself ostracised completely. At many press conferences, Amorim justified his call by questioning Rashford's attitude, criticising his commitment to training (once suggesting he'd rather play his 63-year-old goalkeeping coach instead), explaining that Rashford didn't see football like he did, and saying that the "pressure of playing [for United] is too big" for the likes of the 13th highest scorer in the 147-year history of Manchester United. Many backed the coach -- Rashford may have scored three goals in 309 minutes under Amorim, but he'd failed to deliver for much of the season under previous manager Erik Ten Hag, as well as the season before, and they felt his exile was warranted. 'He just doesn't do enough,' was the common refrain.

After a few weeks training by himself, Rashford found a loan move to Aston Villa, where he sparkled in bits and pieces (especially against eventual champions Paris Saint-Germain in their Champions League quarterfinal) and endeared himself to fans at Villa Park before going into the summer break injured.

When he returned to training, his confidence wasn't helped by another exile. Out of the squad that went on a pre-season tour, Rashford spent a couple of months training with the juniors in the Academy where he had a decade of his life. The tale of the local-boy-turned-cult-hero was quickly turning sour, his deeds of good off-the-pitch quickly forgotten.

Then, just as it started to look properly bleak, Barcelona came calling.

Barca coach Hansi Flick was a big admirer, it turned out and spoke of his "skill, pace, and goal-scoring ability," at the time of his signing (on loan with an option to buy), as well as his "work ethic and willingness to fit into different roles."

It's with this background, all that narrative, swirling around him that Rashford found himself on the Newcastle penalty spot in St. James' Park. Stepping onto the spot, feet planted on the ground Rashford met the cross with a powerful swing of his neck, imparting the missing power on the ball and sending it flying into the far bottom corner. For a player not renowned for his heading prowess, it was a remarkable goal.

He'd started life well enough at Barcelona, producing an assist in LaLiga, but hadn't yet got off the mark. In his fifth game, though, he did just that, in some style. The early sharpness had been converted to a notch in the goals column, and he was just getting started.

*****

Newcastle United 0-1 Barcelona. 66:15. It starts with the most un-Barcelona clearance as Ronald Araujo jumps high at the halfway line to send a header deep up field. It bounces ahead of Rashford, who jumps well and heads it on, looking for Robert Lewandowski. It's not the most accurate header, though, and it hits Dan Burn, before bouncing back to Rashford.

With a soft touch, Rashford kills the rebound at his feet, before unbalancing the rapidly closing Sandro Tonali with a sharp drop of the shoulder. With Tonali squared up, he shifts the ball to the right, fakes a backheel ball roll, and sets off in the general direction of the corner flag. The first two steps Rashford takes are way too quick for Tonali... and 20 yards out, the forward shifts direction. In space suddenly, mid-run diagonally away from goal, he changes direction without warning and cocks his right foot. From that position, the xG is 0.03.

*****

After a 30-goal season under Erik Ten Hag, where he played on the shoulder of the last defender and worked himself into shot-taking positions, the then United manager had shifted Rashford further wide, pushing him to hug the touchline and provide space for the inside channel runs of fullback Diogo Dalot. Rashford lost form, the tactics didn't help him and then the Amorim saga happened. It seemed the shoot-at-sight Rashford of old, the one who so often created something out of nothing, wouldn't be seen much of again.

Except Flick appears to have understood immediately what Rashford's strengths are. So, there he was at St. James' Park, holding width to stretch play when the ball was on the opposite wing, cutting in at will when on the ball, taking up dangerous positions in and outside the box, running the inside channel, and more often than not hanging onto the shoulder of the last man. He was looking like prime Marcus Rashford again.

So, as he made that sharp turn, everyone immediately clocked something was up. St. James' held its collective breath. The defenders braced. The commentators were saying "you can ill afford to concede possession in areas like that to a man like Rashfo..." when he unleashed. With a striking technique that's as clean as it gets, he hit it with the laces, all notions of xG flying out the window, the ball clanging onto the crossbar and into the back of the net with a power that was simply awesome. "It's a missile," called the commentator, and it was about as unstoppable as one.

Flick's celebration, and his teammates' joy, made it evident how popular Rashford had already become. Chants of "Rashford, Rashford" from the away end reinforced it. After the match, Flick was nonplussed. "This is what we always see in training," he said with a smile, before adding, "These goals are important for him for the next step."

From the looks of it, the next step isn't too far away. For showing us that, and for scoring a goal of the season contender in the first matchday itself, Rashford takes our UCL Moment of the Week.

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