England 2 France 0
Every international manager is looking for a player.
And Roy Hodgson has just found one.
Dele Alli grew up in Milton Keynes as a Liverpool supporter.
His favourite player was skipper Steven Gerrard, a scorer of spectacular goals.
He was the man of the match in England’s 2-0 victory over France last night.
And he scored a Stevie G goal from outside the box.
Dele Alli won a big 50-50 tackle against Schneiderlin in centrefield, demanded the ball back from Rooney, and promptly smashed a 20-yard shot that took a slight nick off Koscielny then swerved and dipped under the crossbar.
Beating clubmate Hugo Lloris, who was winning his 75th cap
1-0 to England in 39 minutes.
He is 19 and has only made 8 Premier League starts.
But, as Matt Busby said, if they’re good enough, they’re old enough.
France had started tentatively and in the circumstances that was understandable.
Unlike Spain, whose forwards pressed fiercely in Alicante, France hardly contested the ball at all in England’s half of the pitch early on.
At half-time, Lee Dixon pointed out that the England forwards will have to learn to move across the pitch to help adventurous centreback John Stones when he brings the ball forward and all our midfielders are marked.
Second half, in 48 minutes, Dele Alli intercepted a sloppy Sagna pass to sub Pogba, left the Juventus star on his arse, found Raheem Sterling on the left.
For once the Man City winger didn’t fiddle about, just controlled the ball with his right foot and trusted his left, producing a cross which beat Koscielny at the far post and allowed Rooney to blast a volley in off Llloris’s hip for 2-0.
Late on, Pogba rolled sub Phil Jones and fired a thunderbolt well over the bar.
But it was Dele Alli’s night.
The lad is six foot two and Spurs signed him from Milton Keynes for an initial fee of £5 million.
Of course it’s hard to compare a raw 19-year-old with the silky, powerful 23-year-old Paul Pogba, who has won three Serie A titles with Juventus, and played against Barcelona in the Champions League Final in Berlin this year.
Two weeks ago Gary Neville made Dele Alli man of the match in the 1-1 draw at Arsenal.
Since he had played for England Under-17s and under-18s, Milton Keynes will have insisted on a clause that gives them extra cash if Alli plays for the senior England team. That’s standard procedure.
Centreback John Stones, with his range of skills, is well-suited to international football and might become our Raphael Varane.
ITV pundit Glenn Hoddle, who guided England to the 1998 World Cup, was in no doubt about the defender’s value and potential.
Hoddle said, “John Stones has got to play every single game now.”
So Roy Hodgson did show us something last night.
This was the youngest England team since 1959.