And so it begins. Waking up on Friday morning to news Raphinha had scored twice on his first start for Brazil in their 4-1 win over Uruguay should have been a good start to the day. Instead, it felt like another step towards the beginning of the end game for Rapha’s time at Leeds, after Fabinho and Deco talking about interest from Liverpool earlier in the week.

Not content with Mo Salah and Sadio Mane on either wing, Fabinho said he “expected” Raphinha to move to Anfield last summer. Deco, Rapha’s agent and former Chelsea bastard, said “this is not the time” to talk about him leaving, right after name dropping Liverpool in an interview with Globo about when Raphinha might leave. We never had this with Nicky Ajose, did we?

Watching the game at least made me feel more optimistic. This could even be — fun? Raphinha is certainly enjoying it, adding to his five assists (yes, five, I counted) on his debut against Venezuela with his first two goals for the Selecao. His first came shortly after the referee refused to award free-kicks for two fouls that left him on the floor. Roma left-back Matias Vina tried to make that a hat-trick by lunging towards Rapha on the right with both feet in the air. Rapha responded by rolling the ball through his legs and finally winning a free-kick. A minute later, he was dancing with his teammates, celebrating an easy finish at the back post. That made it 2-0 after Neymar had scored the first, and Raphinha got his second with a keyboard shortcut finish we want to see more often from everyone at Leeds: CTRL + shoot, striking the ball so definitively into the bottom corner Uruguay’s ‘keeper didn’t bother trying to stop it.

Marcelo Bielsa praised Raphinha after Leeds’ win over Watford for refusing to demand privileges despite standing out as a star player. “All the opposite, he takes on more obligations, even more so,” Bielsa said. “That’s why he’s a player that’s valued so much by all of us due to his humility and his capacity of effort.” Now that Raphinha is standing out to an even wider audience — my former colleague, Brazilian football expert Joshua Law, told me, “He is the incarnation of what every Brazilian imagines Brazilian football should be like” — we can expect him to take on even more responsibility in deciding games for Leeds, as long as he keeps living up to Bielsa’s word.

Bielsa has said he judges whether a player is ready to step up from Leeds’ Under-23s to the first team by how they are accepted by the senior players. If the same applies to Brazil, Raphinha has his most important advocate in Neymar, who already loves playing with him. They came out together for both halves, eyeing Uruguay strikers Luis Suarez and Edinson Cavani like they were about to take WWE’s Tag Team title off them. Raphinha eases Neymar’s burden. In the first ten minutes, Brazil deferred to the PSG forward, always passing to his left wing. But that changed and Raphinha started getting more touches, his teammates realising that giving him the ball might be a productive way of creating chances, while freeing Neymar to pick his moments.

After Neymar wasted another opportunity provided by Raphinha in the second half, the commentator on Premier Sports said, “You just get the feeling that Neymar is desperate for a goal tonight, having seen his side score three,” as if Rapha’s brilliance had erased his memory of Neymar scoring Brazil’s first. The longer our guy keeps this up, the closer he will get to pushing his transfer value up towards a figure only a fuel-rich state-owned club can afford to pay — not you, Newcastle, see how James Tarkowski gets on first — by which point we can expect Neymar to be having words with his superiors. Lionel Messi isn’t getting any younger, is he?

All eyes will now be on Raphinha’s form for Leeds. “I’m going back there focused on what made me get here, the good work in Leeds,” he said after the game. “I’m going to do my job well so I can come back again.”

And all ears will be listening out for the next time Fabinho and Deco start talking about Raphinha moving to Liverpool. Fabinho will be lucky to get a word in edgeways at the minute, sharing a private jet with a pumped up Raphinha, banging on about all his goals and assists and how easy it all is. ‘If only Jamie Shackleton had a Brazilian passport, we’d have the best right wing in the world, eh Fab?’ Maybe after trying to talk about his future for him, Fabinho won’t like hearing Raphinha speak for himself, so he’ll just have to leave him alone at Leeds United. Anyway, if Raphinha lets his game keep talking, Liverpool won’t be a step up for long. It’ll be Elland Road or the stars. ⬢