When Gareth Bale scored Hattrick in the San Siro, all persistent doubts disappeared in the Italian night and one of the most destructive attacking forces was launched in British football.
Trust flowed through Bale and he did not cast a backward view. After he once rattled the Aristocrats of Inter Milan on the Champions League stage, he did it again fourteen days later.
Before we knew it, he was in another job.
Declan Rice is another type of football player. One with another personality and profile. He is five years older than Bale was against Inter. There are no questions about his elite status.
Arsenal finally spent £ 105 million for him, and yet those two sensational free-fick goals to overthrow Real Madrid on Tuesday a rare look in the true depth of his technical sparkle.
“It's in my locker,” the 26-year-old rice smiled when Gabriel Clarke on Amazon Prime asked him the question that a nation wanted to know on their banks: where the hell was he hidden that?
When Rice broke into the West Ham team, he looked at many, including some seasoned scouts, such as the type of player who would eventually settle in a role as a Ball-Play Center half.
He imposed it on, with a highly defensive instinct and consciousness. He could read the game and had both the power to physically compete and the speed over the ground to process the runners.
Likewise, he was composed and moved well with the ball, and the modern game demanded mobile center halves who could go to midfield, as Marquinhos did for Thomas Tuchel in Paris Saint-Germain.
Others saw something else. Arsenal explored him extensively for a period of 18 months before he dived in the summer of 2023. They went beyond the norm, as you would expect before such an investment in something as unpredictable as a person.
They investigated his character and although their thoughts had already been made up, they were impressed to see him in the Emirates Stadium to support West Ham's Under 18s in the FA Youth Cup final against Arsenal, in April 2023. He was the only player of the first team to do this.
The more they studied rice, the more they recognized his creative qualities and were convinced that he would be otherwise more effective, despite the rarely scoring goals.
Perhaps it had something to do with the intuition of boss Mikel Arteta and Edu, when sports director and the most important driving force behind the transfer, both of whom played in midfield for talented teams and knew what mattered.
Rice's strengths, they started to appreciate, were on the ball, as well as. He had the ability to disturb and put on opponents, a feeling strengthened when they had him in the club and realized his technical skills.
David Moyes always claimed £ 105 million as a bargain and continues to do this. At the time it seemed like the words of a manager who lost his captain and an irreplaceable figure in his team.
Moyes will have been sharply aware of the high ceiling, even if he usually came to use Rice as a dynamic ball -winning midfielder near West Ham in a team that is designed to prevent the attack.
His capacities to neatly win the ball were vital. He patrolled huge areas and won tackles while he was on his feet, allowing him to jump the team quickly with a forward pass.
There is also selflessness about rice, reflected in his likeability when he speaks.
When I interviewed him in December 2021, we spoke about Zoom for the training for an hour, but he was able to continue the conversation later because it turned out that he wanted to convey, and it was about West Ham and what they created and what he thought they could achieve.
In a team sport, Rice understands the importance of fulfilling his role.
The thing is that he has many talents. In the old language, he could be one of those All-Action warriors of the Bryan Robson-Mal. Maybe he will grow up in a modern version of the original captain Marvel.
Rice certainly has leadership qualities and rarely misses a game. Of the first players in England, he played more minutes than anyone else since last year's euros.
And, with Thomas Partey back to re -anchor midfield after injuries last season, Arsenal has pushed rice on the field. As a result, there have been fewer accents and fewer steps than last season, but Arteta has challenged him to impose his strengths in the attacking third where there is less time to pass by.
It is a work in progress. In those disarmingly honest interviews after the game, Rice showed the humility to promote the mistakes he thought he had made on his biggest night.
He thought he should have done better with a header saved by Thibaut Courtois in the first half and was angry with himself for checking his run and not ending up in the right place to tap a fantastic cross by Bukayo Saka. He asked himself life in the air when his feet were fast enough in the busy criminal areas.
However, the full range of power of Rice has become clearer to the rest of us, because he was entrusted with taking more set pieces instead of trying to get to the end of them.
He took over from Gabriel Martinelli on right -fellow interswing corners after the Midwinter training break of Arsenal in Dubai last season, and this season has taken a larger share with Saka Bless.
Only Andreas Pereira from Fulham has taken more corners in the Premier League this season than Rice's 88, and since he came to Arsenal, he has registered five assists of them.
The quality has been exceptional and the hours that Arsenal will be in practice will only have improved his control of the dead ball.
All of whom culminated in the Emirates on Tuesday, when Saka whispered encouragement to defy the Pitchside instructions of Set-piece Guru Nicolas Jover, who wanted him to get the first free kick in the penalty box on an inverted corner for others to attack.
Rice trusted on his instincts and went for the goal, generating such an appearance to beat the wall, it was impossible not to think of Roberto Carlos – the former Brazil and Real Madrid Full Back who happened to be at the game – and that free kick he scored against France in the opposite direction in the opposite direction.
No wonder that self -confidence rises when the second came and the execution by Rice was even better.
This time, instead of adopting the wall, he accepted Courtois on the goalkeeper's side. Still Real's keeper was nowhere near the ball when it followed an arc with glorious precision in the upper corner.
Two goals of indisputable excellence to shake Europe. Against the best, on the largest stage. Declan, we may have stopped.
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