Neymar, the world’s most expensive footballer, had a match to forget as his PSG squad lost to Real Madrid on Wednesday. He was widely mocked for not showing up in his biggest match of the season after his big money move to Paris, while Cristiano Ronaldo stole the show. Neymar may want to watch and learn from this incredible Marcos Acuña assist for Sporting in the Europa League on Thursday.
Sporting traveled all the way to Kazakhstan for its match with Astana and despite allowing an early goal to Marin Tomasov, the Lisbon club fought back for a 3-1 victory, with the Marcos Acuña assist providing the platform for victory.
The actual pass from Acuña was nothing too spectacular, just a cross from the wing, but the moves building up to the assist were nothing short of spectacular, tricks Neymar would be proud to pull off.
You saw that correctly. The Argentine flicked the ball with his heel over one defender then dinked the ball around another to set up space for a cross. Those moves would have been for naught if not for the end product, supplied by Gelson Martins.
The Marcos Acuña assist gave Sporting a 2-1 lead and was the middle goal of three in a seven-minute span for Sporting, currently in third domestically in Portugal.
Bruno Fernandes scored on a penalty kick in the 48th minute and Seydou Doumbia added some insurance ahead of the return leg in the 55th minute.
It wasn’t all bad for the Kazakh side. Tomasov’s opener was a fantastic strike that seemed to catch Sporting off guard in the seventh minute.
But Yuri Logvinenko picked up a second yellow in the 62nd minute and Astana couldn’t find a way back in the match after the three-goal spurt for Sporting.
Now let’s look at the absurd piece of skill ahead of the Marcos Acuña assist once more because got damn that was pretty.