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It is the phone call or the arm round the shoulder every World Cup wannabee dreads. The moment when he’s told he won’t be going to the greatest show on earth.
Football’s version of two uniformed military officers standing sad-faced on the porch. Nothing like as grief-stricken, of course, as learning that a husband, son, brother or daughter has made the supreme sacrifice for their country. Nevertheless it is gut-wrenching, mind-numbing and heart-breaking to have the door to the pinnacle of your profession slammed in your face.
How a man reacts says much about him. Harry Maguire elected to wail from the rooftops, via the internet and over the airwaves. Thereby breaching the protocol of silence which cloaks such rejection until the boss goes public. And even then masking the disappointment in dignified understatement. This was not Harry’s way.
Perhaps the pain cut all the deeper because the blow was delivered not by a fellow country man but by a foreign agent. Well, whatever anyone thinks about a German managing the England football team Maguire and latterly his mother, brother and sister would have been wiser keeping their counsel.
What happens, for example, if one of the defenders preferred by Thomas Tuchel is badly injured in the last round of Premier League matches this Sunday? There would be time for Tuchel to summon a replacement but has Harry burned his bridges?
If so the Herculean effort he has devoted to resurrecting a career lolling in the doldrums until he made his second coming at Old Trafford will feel yet more agonisingly unrewarded.
What happens if one of the defenders preferred by Thomas Tuchel is badly injured in the last round of Premier League matches this Sunday? Has Harry burned his bridges?
If so the Herculean effort he has devoted to resurrecting a career lolling in the doldrums until he made his second coming at Old Trafford will feel yet more agonisingly unrewarded
Paul Gascoigne flew into a violent rage when Glenn Hoddle told him he would play no part in the 1998 World Cup in France
It is impossible not to feel some sympathy for the man and his proud family. As mum Zoe says he could not have done more for Manchester United to realise his England dream but the respect in which football holds her son was hardly reinforced when she applied the words disgraceful and disgusted to Tuchel’s decision.
Not that Harry boy’s dissent is the most outrageous in England’s history. Paul Gascoigne flew into a violent rage when Glenn Hoddle told him he would play no part in the 1998 World Cup in France. As Gazza himself recalls about trashing his team hotel room: ‘I went berserk. Lost my rag big time. Shouting and swearing at the injustice. Crying and out of control. Gashing my knee as I kicked the door.’
But then Gascoigne was a genius adored by many who danced to his own drummer. Maguire is a bedrock of a centre half with a penchant for heading important goals who has discovered that the involvement of family in this job rarely ends well.
Jude Bellingham has made the cut for America this summer despite the belligerent interference of his father which fanned the flame of his inflated self-esteem. Tuchel had to warn this celebrity footballer that if he continued arrogantly and openly deriding colleagues who failed to deliver the pinpoint passes which would give him the chance of personal glory he might not be on the plane.
‘Team spirit means more in a tournament like this than individual talent,’ this head coach pronounced. Not until Maguire had finished his rant at the unfairness of it all did he remember to ‘wish the lads all the best’ in America.
If it is of the slightest consolation to him in his despair, this commentator would have picked him. Tuchel may suffer the loss of Harry’s vital experience, especially if the frequently injured John Stones falls less than fully fit as the physical strain of this elongated World Cup drags on. If so, what will Harry and family do then? A last laugh would hardly be well-heard across the land should England go out before the July final in New York.
