Marcus Rashford a true English treasure that seized his chance at Manchester United and broke the Golden Boy mould

It is one of the great dilemmas of modern football, and one of the main reasons why the rise of Marcus Rashford, now nominated for the 2017 Golden Boy award, must be continually celebrated. Youth development is hard enough but to develop and learn the game while playing for a top club is another test. But that is where Rashford has flourished, first in 2016, now in 2017, making himself one of the great treasures of the English game.

Why is that so impressive? Because the nature of modern football is that while the big clubs want to sign all the best teenagers, they often do not provide the best platform for them to learn the game. That is why Manchester City and Chelsea, for all their academy investment, have yet to bring a young player into the first team. When the short-term manager needs to win to keep his job, of course he will favour older players over young ones. Even the Barcelona and Bayern Munich first teams are increasingly dominated by the same senior pros who have been there for years.

In reality the best place to be as a future elite player is at a not quite elite club, where the standard is high but the pressure, on the manager as much as on the players themselves, is less. The Golden Boy award is ultimately best suited to players at good teams but not at the superclubs. Look at this decade’s winners: Mario Götze at Borussia Dortmund, Isco then at Malaga, Paul Pogba at Juventus, Raheem Sterling at Liverpool, Anthony Martial at Monaco and Manchester United.

Last year Rashford was just beaten to the award by Renato Sanches, who had done brilliantly at Benfica and with Portugal at Euro 2016. But when he went to Bayern Munich, still aged 19, he struggled to make the adjustment to the highest level. Which is why he is at Swansea City this season, taking two steps back after too many forward.

Which brings us back to Rashford. He has not been bought but has emerged through the academy of one of the biggest clubs in the world. But he has arrived with them in a historic downturn, their worst league run since the late 1980s, long before he was born. That situation, a superclub playing at a second tier level, has created the conditions – less pressure, more opportunity – for Rashford to make his mark.

It was a dearth of strikers back in the final months of the Louis van Gaal era that created the space for Rashford to break through and he immediately showed he was ready for the demands of playing for the club. Within months he could claim to be United’s best player, and went to Euro 2016 with England too.

Some feared the worst when Jose Mourinho replaced Van Gaal but Rashford’s development has not slowed down. He has worked hard in the gym on his physique and now, in his new role out on the left wing, is as powerful as ever before. Harry Kane is the great English striker of his generation but Rashford is more than four years younger than him and there is no reason he cannot go on to be as good. His winner for England against Slovakia this month, driven low into the bottom corner of the net, was reminiscent of Kane himself.

Gareth Southgate has overseen the development of both men and is always full of praise for Rashford and his development. When he discussed him over the last international break, he said he did not even mind which position he was playing in. “As a young player nailing down a definitive position is less important than being selected in the team, and Jose clearly trusts him to play,” Southgate said. “Whether he is 7, 11, 10, 9 is less important. The opportunity to play and play in big matches like he did last year in the Europa League final is more important at this stage.”

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Clearly Rashford is learning from playing for a club of United’s status, a point Southgate has made regularly. “United prepare their players well, which is why they end up the way they do,” he said. “Playing in front of 70,000 people every week, you know the kind of player they will be before they walk through the door. Marcus has a great platform to build from, and he has a good influence in Jose Mourinho to keep him grounded.”

Ultimately all stories of development are about ability and opportunity. Rashford may have been luckier than some to have things fall for him last year in such a way that he could prove his worth to such a big club. But since then he has proven on the biggest stages he is worth it, in a way not many of his Golden Ball rivals have done yet.