Carlos Eduardo: 5-Goal Game a One-Hit Wonder for Porto's Nice Loanee?

After being Pele for a day scoring by five goals in Nice's 7-2 win over Guingamp, Brazilian central attacking midfielder Carlos Eduardo, 25, has not found the back of the net in five Ligue 1 games.

It accentuates the one word Porto's Nice loanee has been desperately seeking: consistency.

Un:Guingamp's wall of Lionel Mathis (5'8"), Sambou Yatabare (6'3"), Younousse Sankhare (6'1"), Ronnie Schwartz (6'0") and Sylvain Marveaux (5'8") were rendered useless. 

Eduardo's Juan Roman Riquelme-esque free-kick darted away from the reach of Guingamp goalkeeper Jonas Lossl.

Deux: Timing a run with perfection, Eduardo received a simple pass from Nice defensive midfielder Didier Digard and slotted the ball past Lossl.

Trois: Guingamp's defence were in disarray as Nice left attacking midfielder Eric Bautheac broke free and sent the ball toward the far post. 

Guingamp left-back Reynald Lemaitre was forced to mark two players: Nice centre-forward Alassane Plea and Eduardo. 

Lemaitre marked neither. Eduardo volleyed home Bautheac's cross unmarked. 

Quatre: Guingamp centre-back Jeremy Sorbon glanced at Plea, who delivered a low diagonal ball.

Unbeknownst to Sorbon, behind him was Eduardo, whose shot ricocheted into the net off Lossl.

Cinq: Nice substitute Julien Vercauteren split open Guingamp's defence and found a wide-open Eduardo with a through ball. Eduardo's ensuing shot diverted into the net off Lossl's midriff.

Needing just 64 minutes to become the first Ligue 1 player in 30 years to score five goals, Eduardo was going to be an entertainer like Ederson Honorato, while also scoring as prolifically as Just Fontaine.

At Eduardo's zenith against Guingamp, he averaged a goal every 12.8 minutes.

In the proceeding 369 minutes, how many goals has he scored in Ligue 1?

Zero—cue quote from Cardiff City owner Vincent Tan.

"One day we are a hero," Tan said, per David Ornstein at BBC Sport. "Another day we are a zero."

Un: Nice 1-3 Lyon 

Eduardo may have wished he could have swapped places with Bautheac, who blasted the ball over from a few yards out. 

When Lyon central midfielder Corentin Tolisso dropped deep providing extra protection for centre-backs Milan Bisevac and Samuel Umtiti, Eduardo was ineffective. 

Deux: Evian Thonon Gaillard 1-0 Nice

Evian goalkeeper Jesper Hansen was unflappable when Eduardo shaped up to shoot. 

As the ball fell into Eduardo's path, he rushed the shot—it was as potent as a back-pass to Hansen—summing up a frustrating night.

Trois: Paris Saint-Germain 1-0 Nice

Rested in a 0-0 draw against Reims due to a calf injury, Eduardo was still sore going into the game against PSG.

"I'll speak to the medical team and see what sort of risks we'd be taking [with Eduardo playing]," Puel said, per Ligue1.com. "[His calf is] getting better all the time but I don't know...whether he'll start the game or not."

Valentin Eysseric filled in for Eduardo, starting as the No. 10 behind No. 9 Plea.

Eduardo was subbed on late, but failed to register a single shot. 

Quatre: Nice 1-2 Rennes

Eduardo was stifled whenever he entered Rennes defensive midfielder Anders Konradsen's zone.

Konradsen played the game of his life—making four tackles, intercepting three passes, clearing the ball seven times and scoring a goal—whereas Eduardo was missing in action. 

Nice goalkeeper Mouez Hassen accumulated more touches (27) than Eduardo (26).

Cinq: Caen 2-3 Nice

Bautheac showed off his set piece mastery while Eduardo watched on.

An outswinging free-kick from Bautheac caused Caen goalkeeper Remy Vercoutre to tip the shot onto the post, which led to Nice left-back Jordan Amavi poaching a goal. 

Vercoutre was then fooled from the penalty spot by Bautheac's perfectly weighted Panenka.

Eduardo's biggest contribution was losing the ball, and the subsequent Caen clearance fortuitously re-routed toward Plea, who took advantage by scoring.

Ligue 1 Only	Guingamp 2-7 Nice	Next 5 Games
Goals	5	0
Shots Taken	8	9
Shots On Target	7	3
Shots Off Target	1	6
Shooting Accuracy %	87.5	33.3

Eduardo regressed to 1.5 shots per game, and his shooting accuracy declined 54.2 percent. 

It is an erratic downturn.

Should this be a surprise? No.

After all, Eduardo's inconsistency at Porto was why his move to Nice was buried on the summer transfer deadline day and warranted just a single line, per Ligue1.com: "OGC Nice announced the loan signing of Brazilian midfielder Carlos Eduardo from FC Porto."

Exiting out the door at Porto, Eduardo's career in Portugal is a blur.

"My expectations are to win trophies [at Porto]," Eduardo said, per UEFA.com. "I have come to a winning club."

Forget about contributing to Porto winning trophies; Eduardo fought every day in training to win a spot in the first-team squad, constantly interchanging from the B team.

Eduardo arrived at Porto having signed from Estoril, where he was involved in third-party ownership, which has a myriad of complicated layers, per Michael Yokhin at ESPN FC:

"

[Eduardo] didn't really make his mark in Brazilian football at all before starting his European adventure...Desportivo Brasil, a small club owned by Traffic, is an event management company that makes good business selling promising footballing talents [such as Eduardo]. Traffic also own Estoril Praia in Portugal, and [Eduardo] was transferred across.

"

Traffic utilise a "high-profit model of player development and commodification," per David Goldblatt's book Futebol Nation: A Footballing History of Brazil:

"

In the 2000s, [Traffic] began buying and selling players with a mix of its own money and that of outside investors. ... FIFA banned third-party ownership of players in 2007 but Traffic and the other companies got round this by creating or buying their own clubs - like Desportivo Brasil.

"

Translation: Eduardo lacked a body of work in Brazil, and his move to Estoril was arranged in order to generate money.

Eduardo—a creative, forward-thinking, technically superb and potential match-winner—is the ideal candidate for Traffic.

Though, Eduardo is also a mercurial footballer, because his playing style is geared towards getting noticed. 

Scoring a long-range free-kick, embarking on an elongated dribble or a panache assist could lead to a profit ranging from six to seven figures. 

Porto punted on Eduardo, buying him for €900,000/£713,681 from Estoril.

Rewind back to Nice manager Claude Puel's reacting to Eduardo's five-goal haul against Guingamp.

Refusing to be a prisoner of the moment, Puel foreshadowed Eduardo's fluctuating form.

"[Eduardo has] got the potential to be a top-level player," Puel said, per Ligue1.com. "He just needs more consistency."

Eduardo's five goals against Guingamp is an anomaly a la French basketballer Rodrigue Beaubois' 40 points for the Dallas Mavericks against the Golden State Warriors in 2010.

"I felt great," Beaubois said, per the Associated Press (h/t ESPN). "I thought I couldn't miss so I kept shooting."

Beaubois' 40 points was a 32.9-point increase from his career average of 7.1 points per game.

Like Beaubois, Eduardo probably thought to himself at one point during the game against Guingamp: "I can't miss, so I'm going to keep on shooting."

It is the same mentality Russian centre-forward Oleg Salenko had when he scored a record five times in a 6-1 win over Cameroon at the 1994 FIFA World Cup.

Eduardo and Salenko both received a 10/10 rating from French newspaper L'Equipe.

When you factor in Eduardo's bare CV and his extreme decline in form for Nice, his upside leans heavily toward Salenko, a career that would have been nondescript but was defined by a one-hit wonder.

@allanjianga          

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