Paul Clement could not fathom what he had just seen. His first reaction was anger, then bafflement and in the end, probably pity as he bowed his head into his hands on the Stamford Bridge touchline.
No one knows for sure, but that moment was likely the trigger to take Renato Sanches out of the firing line and substitute him.
The 20-year-old midfielder was not enjoying his best game in a Swansea shirt, making sloppy passes and continually bypassed by the Chelsea midfield.
But one moment summarised his demise. In the centre of the park, Sanches was in possession and under no real sense of pressure, he passed out towards the touchline.
There was no player there. Just an advertising hoarding, displaying the red logo of ‘Carabao’, the company that sponsored Chelsea at the time.
It was understandable, considering his Swansea team-mates were wearing red, yet it was a lapse of concentration which encapsulated his troubles.
When he did not emerge from the tunnel to take his place on the pitch for the second half, there was no surprise. Nor was there when the television cameras spotted on him in the dugout with a moody expression splashed across his face.
All he ever wanted was to play football, but stardom had arrived a moment too soon.
After just one season in the senior squad with hometown club Benfica, Bayern Munich stumped up £36m to secure the 18-year-old’s signature in 2016, beating Manchester United to his signing.
It was his displays at Euro 2016 which had got the football world talking. Portugal won the tournament after being guided by Cristiano Ronaldo, but Sanches was a standout performer, providing endless energy and tenacity in the midfield areas.
The Bavarian giants believed in his ability, making him their fourth-most expensive player in the club’s history. But in Germany, there was a belief that such a large transfer fee represented a huge risk.
Sanches began life in the Bundesliga with an error-strewn debut and lasted only 71 minutes. He received backing from captain Philip Lahm, who defended the youngster’s display.
"He's a very, very good player, otherwise he wouldn't be here,” he said. “He's a European champion and will definitely be an asset to us in the future.
There were several issues for Sanches to overcome and quite simply, he couldn’t. The pace of the game was different to Portugal, he did not speak the language and he was unable to get a run of games under his belt, with only four starts coming under Carlo Ancelotti.
Given his tender age and need for experience, his loan move to Swansea for the 2017-18 season made perfect sense. Paul Clement, who had worked with the youngster when he was Ancelotti’s assistant at Bayern Munich, was in charge and he felt he could unlock his talent.
But a loss of confidence can often make a talented player look no better than a League Two footballer and Sanches was struggling to adjust to life in the Premier League. Badly.
He would make only 17 appearances for the Welsh outfit and only on one occasion did he taste victory — a 2-1 success against Watford in which he played the full 90 minutes. That he still had a quiet game in that game — and his record of no goals or assists for the season — spoke volumes of his limited impact.
Clement recently reflected on how Sanches was “far more damaged” than he first thought when bringing him in from Bayern.
“When he came, he was far more damaged than I thought,” he told The Times. “It was really sad. He was a boy who had almost got the weight of the world on his shoulders.
“In training, when that pressure is not there, he was the best player. But then in games, I looked at the choices he was making, shooting from 45 yards on the angle, and he kept making those mistakes.
“He got in a vicious cycle of poor choices. The other players were saying, "he's playing like that and you're not picking me” so it became difficult to pick him.”
After Swansea’s relegation, Sanches went back to the Allianz Arena in an attempt to revive his career. He was only 20, after all, so it was far from over and under the nurturing guidance of Niko Kovac, he found his way back into the reckoning.
He was earning chances in the first team and even finding himself in the starting XI. It seemed that he was on the right track until he was sent off late on in the 1-0 win against RB Leipzig. All it took was a one-game absence to break his momentum and from then on, he was used sparingly by Kovac.
It was clear Sanches needed a fresh start where the pressure was somewhat reduced. As a Jorge Mendes client, he would never struggle to find a new club and headed to Lille, who were renowned for signing players from his Gestifute agency, in July 2019.
Sanches was no obscure arrival though, and the Ligue 1 side paid a club-record £25m fee for his services. So there was some pressure on him to deliver. But with fellow Portuguese compatriots Jose Fonte and Tiago Djalo, it allowed him to settle into life in France.
Over the past two seasons, Sanches has made 59 appearances for the French side and scored five goals. He had become a key member of Christophe Galtier’s midfield and on the back of celebrating their stunning domestic triumph, Sanches had his confidence again.
Euro 2020 was an opportunity for him to show the world the ‘new Renato Sanches’, a player no longer crippled by the weight of expectation.
Curiously, Fernando Santos only used him as a substitute in the first two matches. But seeing that his side needed an injection of pace in the midfield, he brought in Sanches for the crunch matches against France and Belgium. Sanches excelled and was arguably the Selecao’s top performer.
On Sunday, some Swansea fans might have been watching Euro 2020 with a sense of amazement. Not just because Wales had reached the knockout stages, but because they were witnessing a devastatingly brilliant display from Sanches.
He was absolutely everywhere against Belgium, winning possession high up the pitch and at one point, zooming past Kevin De Bruyne and Thomas Meunier on a 60-yard burst forward. Portugal bowed out of the tournament, but the midfielder's display did not go unnoticed on social media.
It was the kind of performance that would have made Clement and Kovac proud, considering how far he had fallen. Five years on from when he had made his mark at Euro 2016, Sanches is reborn.
