"Not bad! But I refuse to believe you can keep stopping my shots all match."
After his shot, Higuaín caught Leon's eye for a brief moment on the pitch, and still did not truly rate him.
One one-on-one saved meant nothing.
The match continued.
Leon threw the ball out to left-back De Sciglio.
Among that AC Milan back line, De Sciglio was the only one capable of carrying the ball forward.
De Sciglio played it to Menez, who had come short to receive.
Menez then played a long ball out to right winger Bonaventura.
With the team on a sustained winning run, the mood inside the AC Milan squad had become wonderfully settled.
Menez had changed his game too, holding the ball far less than before.
That was easy to understand.
When a team keeps winning match after match, everyone feels a sense of purpose.
Without Inzaghi needing to say a word, players were starting to give of themselves naturally.
There was another element to it as well: Inzaghi's personal charisma was genuinely remarkable, and with AC Milan now in the ascendant, his hold over the dressing room had only grown stronger.
When things aligned like that, everything became straightforward.
Even the chaos of AC Milan's play began to carry a certain artistry.
Bonaventura burst forward at pace down the right and drove in a cross.
Torres attacked the near post and won the first header.
Rather than going directly at goal, he flicked the ball sharply back towards the penalty spot.
Menez arrived on the run and, before the ball had even touched the ground, struck a clean volley.
Goooooooal!
AC Milan's goal had arrived with such ease and simplicity.
"Ha ha!"
In that moment, Menez felt the pure joy of team play.
He ran straight over and wrapped Torres in a tight embrace.
Torres had made a significant change of his own.
Having accepted that he could not recapture his best form in front of goal this season, he had quietly committed himself to the unglamorous work.
Treating himself as a hold-up striker: contesting the first header, laying the ball off for his teammates.
Right now, the results spoke for themselves.
"Yes!"
On the touchline, Inzaghi felt as though he had reached the peak of his life.
In truth, AC Milan's attacking output had been ferocious from the very start of the season.
A side that only attacks will still score goals regardless.
But back then, the defensive line had been practically non-existent.
Scorelines of 5-3 and 5-4 had been a regular occurrence.
Now, with Leon starting, Inzaghi could not say for certain they would always win, but he knew they would not lose.
The worst outcome was a 0-0 draw.
Which manager in the game could enjoy that kind of certainty?
Napoli goalkeeper Reina had no time to react to Menez's thunderous strike.
Every opposing goalkeeper who shared a pitch with Leon looked like a puppet by comparison.
On the touchline, Benítez shook his head in frustration.
His frustration was not with Napoli's defending. It was with his attack.
Napoli's defensive record had never been reliable, and there was no point dwelling on that now.
What Benítez cared about was his team going forward.
That clear one-on-one opportunity Higuaín had moments earlier should not have been wasted.
If that had gone in, Napoli would have been leading 1-0.
And AC Milan might well not have found another goal.
But no amount of Benítez's thinking could change what had already happened.
With a goal down, Napoli had no choice but to commit fully to attack.
In the eleventh minute, a perfectly threaded through ball from Inler cut through AC Milan's defensive line once again.
'Here we go again!'
Higuaín's role at Napoli was to score goals, over and over again.
A top-class forward always finds a way to create a shooting opportunity, and this time was no different.
A diagonal run in behind saw Higuaín clean through on goal once more.
Leon came off his line again.
But Higuaín suddenly showed a different quality, and at the very moment he was about to meet Leon, he pulled up sharply.
He dragged the ball outside and came to a stop at the edge of the penalty area.
'He's going to...'
Leon's eyes narrowed as he absorbed the touch of a genuinely top-level forward.
Higuaín had not panicked. If anything, he was perfectly composed.
The position where Higuaín had stopped the ball placed Leon in a deeply uncomfortable situation.
He had now come out beyond the penalty area, so he could no longer use his hands.
And if Leon simply stopped where he was, Higuaín had too many options available.
Whether he cut it back to the onrushing Callejón or lifted another chip, either choice would pick Leon's defence apart.
A one-on-one specialist he may have been, but when the situation became this extreme, even Leon had to accept there were limits.
Because if he did pull off the save in a situation this absurd, he would be dragged into a laboratory and put under a microscope.
He had already faced one round of scrutiny. He could not afford another.
Bravery: 15! Composure: 15! Concentration: 15! Willpower: 20!
Those exceptional mental attributes kept Leon utterly calm in this moment too.
Push through it.
Leon charged out of the penalty area and positioned himself in front of Higuaín like a defender.
When Higuaín saw Leon come out beyond the box, a faint smile crossed his face.
'Getting past you is going to be as easy as crossing an empty road in the morning.'
He simply could not believe a goalkeeper outside the penalty area could pose any threat to him whatsoever.
'This is bad!'
Not only did the devoted AC Milan supporters who had made the trip feel a sudden knot of dread, but Inzaghi on the touchline felt it too.
Leon's goalkeeping ability was beyond question.
But outside the penalty area, he was operating as a regular defender.
Just as an ordinary outfield player would be helpless in goal, a goalkeeper was rarely equipped to perform in an outfield role.
Leon's mind, in this moment, remained completely still.
[Interception Master]!
Leon still had the [Interception Master] badge drawn from Pogba.
Outside the penalty area, interception success rate increased by 50%!
That was enough.
It was not 100%, but if you spent too long calculating the odds, you might as well not play football at all.
In a flash, Leon did not slow down at all and simply stabbed a foot at the ball under Higuaín's feet.
A faint smirk appeared on Higuaín's face. 'You can't seriously think that's going to work!'
'If you could take the ball off me that easily, I'd be an absolute joke!'
'Wait.'
'What the...'
The expression on Higuaín's face froze.
Leon nipped the ball cleanly away from Higuaín's feet and booted it long into the forward half.
Danger cleared.
"Oh! God!"
The Napoli supporters in the home stands sat there questioning the very nature of reality.
So did Higuaín.
He stood rooted to the spot and could not come back to his senses for a long moment.
But the match on the pitch had not paused for Higuaín's bewilderment.
Leon's interception of Higuaín had left the AC Milan players stunned as well.
But they had long since grown accustomed to Leon producing all manner of outrageous moments.
Seeing Leon send the ball long into the forward half, Torres still went and contested the first header.
Suso met it with a headed flick-on, nudging the ball ahead sharply and immediately breaking into a sprint.
Suso's natural ability was genuinely impressive.
At one time he had been one of AC Milan's most prized young talents.
But his consistency had always been the problem.
In a select few matches he would produce something genuinely brilliant. In most, he simply disappeared.
In this match, though, Suso clearly wanted to make his mark.
Having caught up with the ball, Suso drove directly down the left.
Napoli right-back Zukanović had pushed extremely high earlier in the move and was nowhere near his defensive position.
So Suso was able to advance all the way to the edge of the left side of the penalty area with very little resistance.
Suso made a sharp stop and cut inside.
Centre-back Enrique was forced to come across and cover.
On another day, Suso would almost certainly have taken a shot there and then.
But the mood inside the AC Milan squad right now was so good that Suso felt the truly inspired choice in this moment was to play the pass.
"Bang!"
Suso rolled the ball across to Torres, who had already made the run and arrived at the right moment.
"Brilliant! Thank you!"
Torres struck it cleanly and the ball flew into the net.
Goooooooooal!