MEX vs CMR star man: Dos Santos sends a reminder of what he can do

Giovani dos Santos scored dos goals which were wrongly ruled out for offside dos times — but that didn’t stop him from starring in a match which opened with a flurry and petered out as Mexico were frustrated with refereeing errors and Cameroon got stuck in on a night of pouring rain in Recife. Dos Santos had the ball in the net twice — in the 11th and 29th minute — the first of which was an extremely close decision proven to be wrong by replays and the second a confounding one as a Cameroon defender seemed to touch the ball before Santos headed it in at the far post. [caption id=“attachment_1569943” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Getty Images[/caption] But those were not the only reasons why Santos is our star of the match — his creativity in a free role allowing him to tear apart Cameroon’s defence with deft touches, clever passes and runs into the attacking third. It was no surprise he was involved in the deciding goal.  Dos Santos’ passing accuracy was 89% — as you can see, missing just four of his attempted passes in 90 minutes. It’s also hard to keep one’s head in a game after you’ve been denied two perfectly good goals but Santos enjoyed a 100% tackle success rate and was a menace throughout the game. As for the finishes themselves, the first was a deft first-time side-foot past the keeper and the second an acrobatic header — traits which have helped him get 12 goals in the La Liga last season.  Dos Santos tackles were all over the park – justifying his free role The Mexican team’s movement was quick, slick and dangerous through the wide areas — meaning that a player with the eye for a pass and a trick will excel in such a system. Dos Santos did well at the last World Cup too, so there’s no reason to take your eye off him right now.