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Your support makes all the difference.Here’s a story about how sportsmen feel about being "rested". It is late February 1971 and England’s cricketers have been slogging around Australia for nearly five months and seven Tests. Then they go to New Zealand for two more Tests they could well do without.
They ask their wicketkeeper, Alan Knott, if he wouldn’t mind stepping down for the first game against New Zealand. His deputy, Bob Taylor, is an awfully good bloke who played in all the up-country games in places like Geelong. He deserves a reward. Knott is livid. He is the best wicketkeeper in the world. He demands to play in the next Test and thrashes a century.
That’s how Wayne Rooney would have felt watching from the bench here in St Etienne because that is how all great sportsmen feel when they do not play. Alan Shearer, who like Rooney was captain of England and the nation’s best footballer, was never "rested". When at Newcastle, Sir Bobby Robson suggested that, now he was well into his 30s, Shearer might like to miss the odd Europa League fixture Shearer told him otherwise.
This was not some minor fixture in the Europa League. England were facing Slovakia in the European Championship and if they were to finish first in the group, they had to beat them and Slovakia knew a point would almost certainly take them through as one of the best third-placed teams.
Perhaps because England had qualified for the tournament by beating a number of small eastern European nations, Roy Hodgson was entitled to feel relaxed. During the interval, many of the thousands of England fans who crammed into this small, rather bruised-looking city that was once the centre of the French armaments industry, were not quite so confident.
England had dominated the match but, in Toulouse, Wales were two up on Russia, a nation that brought some fearsome looking hooligans to this tournament but some pretty feeble footballers. It was goalless in St Etienne and, if it remained like that, England would finish second. By the end the frustration was overwhelming. When Dele Alli shot over deep into stoppage time, the last shot England would have, the anger spilled over from the stands.
The stadium they were in should serve as a warning as to what happens to England when you do not top your group. In the 1998 World Cup, England beat Colombia and Tunisia but delivered a sloppy performance against Romania. They failed to finish first and instead of playing Croatia, they faced Argentina, here in St Etienne. It was the finest game of the World Cup and one England lost.
Just before the hour mark, Rooney came on to an ovation, followed soon afterwards by Alli. Against Albania in Marseilles, the France manager, Didier Deschamps, had rested Paul Pogba and Antoine Griezmann for what should have been a routine game and then been forced to bring them on when things weren’t going that routinely.
Slovakia are a better side than Albania. Thet pressed the Welsh hard and held off waves of Russian attacks in Lille. Rooney unquestionably should have started against them.
It was unquestionably right that Jamie Vardy did. He is in the form of his life and it is possible to imagine that whether he remains at Leicester or not that he will never play like this again. He had scored almost immediately against Wales and his first, instinctive touch in St Etienne sent the ball just over Matus Kozacik’s bar. When played clean through and with Martin Skrtel pounding behind him, he ought to have scored but the shot clanged against Kozacik’s legs.
Hodgson was, however, surely right to bring off Daniel Sturridge, who had scored the late winner against Wales, rather than Vardy. A couple of years ago, Vardy was playing alongside Kevin Phillips, who was in the very twilight of his career. They had similar backgrounds, both had played non-league football and had come late to the limelight.
In 2000, Phillips was selected for England’s European Championship squad. Like Vardy he was in the form of his life. He had just won the European Golden Boot, the only time this is likely to happen to anyone playing for Sunderland.
If Phillips was ever going to shine, it would have been in Euro 2000. Kevin Keegan in his wisdom decided not to give him a single minute of a tournament in which England failed even to get out of their group. Probably because it would have meant resting Alan Shearer.
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