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Marcus Rashford celebrates scoring England’s winner in the 2-1 victory against Slovakia at Wembley
Marcus Rashford celebrates scoring England’s winner in the 2-1 victory against Slovakia at Wembley. Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock
Marcus Rashford celebrates scoring England’s winner in the 2-1 victory against Slovakia at Wembley. Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock

Wembley’s sullen mood dispelled by a touch of class from Marcus Rashford

This article is more than 6 years old
Striker’s wonderful goal finally won over a crowd reduced to silence by the painful memories of Malta and England’s poor start against Slovakia

When it comes to England it is not the spells of ineptitude that kill you – those periods, as in the opening half‑hour at Wembley, where the ball appears to be square, the players only dimly acquainted. It is of course the hope. As Marcus Rashford turned and spanked a low shot into the corner to put England 2-1 up, the Wembley crowd leapt and roared and basked in a moment of class from a wonderful attacking talent who had struggled initially here but improved significantly with a switch up front.

For all the angst of the past few days, England have now all but killed off a mediocre World Cup qualifying group. A Russian summer looms. Gareth Southgate can begin scouting overpriced, over-thought-out training complexes in which England can stage their round-table symposia with leading corporate thinkfluencers, their team‑bonding primal scream sessions. And English football can look forward to nine months of worrying about injuries, team selections, the hand gestures of Dele Alli and the full range of pre‑tournament ritual.

In the build-up to this game the Wembley crowd itself had been the subject of much discussion. After the travails of Malta, Southgate had called on England’s fans to create a furiously intimidating cauldron of hate. Presumably he has not been here much recently. Wembley can be noisy for Cup semis and finals. When it comes to England, with the heavy corporate presence, the deathly thunk of the band, the air of a slightly wan, end-of-tour Cliff Richard concert, well, perhaps not so much.

Wembley had been a half-cocked thing at kick-off, with a scattering of red plastic seats in almost every section. The official crowd was 67,823, a low turnout for a qualifier. And at times, as the two teams fell back into a massed joust around the halfway line, Wembley was almost silent beneath the parpings of the brass section.

This did at least represent progress. In the opening half-hour the stadium had been noisily misaligned as the narrow tranche of away fans twirled their shirts and scarves, buoyed by Stanislav Lobotka’s opening goal and by the craft of the Slovakia players up against the carved stone Easter Island heads selected to man England’s midfield.

Dele Alli gesture detracts from England performance, says Southgate – video

Slovakia’s third-minute goal was well worked. Rashford tried to dribble away from his own area, but was robbed. Adam Nemec played a lovely pass between two flat-footed defenders. Lobotka finished easily as Joe Hart produced his starfish-pose too early and without conviction, a supermarket own‑brand Peter Schmeichel.

After which Wembley became a painful, sullen, lost-feeling place. For long periods England’s hulking midfield and central defence ranged themselves around the centre circle like a white-shirted Stonehenge, the ball rebounding pointlessly among them like a paper bag blown by the wind. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain sprinted 20 yards and punted the ball high over the posts and crossbar, a tribute perhaps to the All Blacks, whose “winning culture” has been one of the lecture subjects favoured by England’s hodgepodge of blue-sky thinkers over the past few months.

Steadily though the game began to turn, and credit to Southgate’s men for that. It is important to point out England’s players were not overawed here, or particularly below-par. They tried hard in that opening period. The fact is, they are just not that good. Or rather they are talented and young, but not so good they can turn up and expect a team as competent and motivated as Slovakia to be brushed aside with ease. This seems an important point; and one still short of making its way into every corner of the English footballing delusion.

As England settled Eric Dier produced a neat equaliser late in the first half. Rashford and Alli began to enjoy each other’s company. The winning goal was deserved, victory greeted with warm, conciliatory applause from a crowd seduced by the energy of the second half, and by a winning moment of incision.

Rashford had started for England for the first time in place of Raheem Sterling. It looked a sensible move at kick-off, and by the end the most significant event of this narrow victory. At times Rashford has something princely about him, offering not just goals and pace but an ability to take the ball with his head up, a feeling of a player stretching out into the far reaches of his talent.

The attackers he admires most are Neymar and Cristiano Ronaldo, the elite inside-forwards of European club football, those who play right across the frontline. And in Rashford, Alli and Harry Kane England do have a frontline with talent and mobility, a peg on which to hang the slightly bruised hopes that will wax in the shadows for the next nine months. As ever, a reckoning up will come. But this was for now a moment, if not to dream; then to slip into an uneasy reverie at the best parts of another oddly fraught, oddly frictionless qualification.

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