A day after Arsenal's UCL clash against Athletic Bilbao, a clear but moderately grainy image surfaced online mid-morning, snapped outside a quiet Paris hotel.
In it was Izan, hoodie up, headphones on, pulling a small carry-on behind him as he crossed the pavement.
France.
On any other day, it might have gathered millions of likes like posts about Izan always did, as well as the usual comments, but the timing, with all that was upcoming, blew everything out of proportion.
Within minutes, the image was everywhere.
Cropped.
Zoomed.
Circled.
Captioned.
And everybody had something to say.
"So he's already there?"
"Ballon d'Or mode."
"No City then?"
The comments piled up faster than most posts could manage in a year.
A day after Bilbao, and already in Paris.
To a certain corner of the internet, that was enough.
The conclusion wrote itself.
