It has become the most thrilling sight in modern football, one that makes even idle observers look up from their phones and fix their attentions on the television screen, gripped by a sense of foreboding akin to hearing the first strains of the theme music from Jaws: Kylian Mbappe bearing down on goal, with only one defender barring his path.
There were 13 minutes remaining in Holland's UEFA Nations League game against France in September when Virgil van Dijk found himself thrust into the role of the solitary defender. Paul Pogba's pass from deep put Mbappe one-on-one with Van Dijk, and as the Paris Saint-Germain forward sped across the halfway line, the Stade de France roared like an expectant Colosseum.