Kobbie Mainoo, Jude Bellingham and Phil Foden are England's reasons to believe
During those long days of Covid lockdown four years ago I would sit at my office window and watch a teenage boy dribbling a football in and out of cones on the family driveway across the road. He would do shuttle runs, too.
His father would sometimes watch but the boy clearly knew what he was doing. Turned out he was in Manchester United's academy and was following a detailed programme provided by his club.
I spoke to United's academy head Nick Cox about it at the time and he explained that his staff were determined to ensure their players were occupied and focussed as much as possible during those confusing and scary weeks when they were unable to come to the club.
More importantly, though, were the phone calls that were being regularly made to boys and their parents to check on mental and economic wellbeing. At one stage, there was a Zoom call made by first team manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
'We care about their football progress,' Cox explained to me back then. 'But first and foremost we need to make sure they are okay.'
I thought about all this on the way home from Wembley on Tuesday night because young Kobbie Mainoo would have been 14 when lockdown started. He was in United's system back then. Just another hopeful boy. Maybe he was guiding footballs through cones outside the family home in Stockport too. Maybe he picked up the phone one day to hear his academy coach on the line simply asking if he was all right.
And this is not just a Manchester United thing. It's an academy thing. It's a modern English football thing. This is the way it is now and that is why when we watch Mainoo easing the ball neatly and progressively through the England midfield in the rain against Belgium we should all feel lifted for all kinds of
Read on m.allfootballapp.com
