Is Marcus Rashford real or imagined? This is a question he is probably asking himself, and has been for some time. There is the sense of a player there, a glimpse of something special then it’s gone.
This was Rashford’s first start for England since his departure for Spain but his fitful effort on the left was not much improved from his flat showing against Albania in March.
Thomas Tuchel complained then of a lack of impact. Though there were moments against Serbia that carried echoes of his Barcelona form, sublime one-touch control of a cross-field pass whilst on the move, slipping the ball through the legs to leave another defender grappling the ether, both inputs ended in familiar dead ends. Rashford the cul-de-sac king.
Perhaps England should play in the colours of Barcelona, drapery which seems to set him free. Rashford has six goals and seven assists in red and blue, one of those at St James’s Park in the Champions League worthy of the Louvre.
The Barca version of Rashford appears synced to the boy king rolled out to such acclaim by Louis van Gaal in 2016, rippling the nets of Midtjylland on debut and Arsenal in successive home games.
Rashford scored 138 goals in 428 matches for Manchester United, 30 of them in one comet-shower three seasons ago before the unravelling. One of his former coaches, Ole Gunnar Solksjaer, turned psychotherapist week.
Rashford wasn’t enjoying life at Old Trafford. He is at Camp Nou, reasons Solskjaer reductively.
Rashford has been on fire at Barcelona (Photo: Getty)
Maybe so. Disentangled from a complex association stretching back 20 years, Rashford is reinvented as a fleet-footed raider capable of anything. In Spain he is Marcus. In England, Rashford. There is a world of difference between the two.
Marcus is merely a footballer, known by the priesthood, ignored by civilians. He can wander the beaches and restaurants of Castelldefels or Sitges unencumbered, his profile shorn of celebrity. There is no stained back catalogue to reference, no value-loaded past. No Covid campaigns, no Belfast bunkers, no murals to uphold, just a football to kick when Saturday comes.
Rashford, by contrast, is steeped in history, the good and the bad. You wonder how much damage his fight for free school meals during Covid did in the positioning of Rashford as a charismatic establishment-basher. Squeezing the pips of that slippery cad Boris Johnson in the highest seat of power was arguably Rashford’s finest moment.
Yet it imposed a standard that he could never hope to meet in normal times. He has been placed in an uncomfortable spot somewhere between himself, Marcus, and the Rashford constructed for public view by his Roc Nation management team, now dumped.
The essential Rashford, that player that lit up the Manchester skies a decade ago, was lost in the identity muddle, the kid winging it entirely on instinct irreconcilable with faltering, accidental talisman shaped by others.
He lasted only 64 minutes against Serbia before making way for Eberechi Eze, who of course scored a cracker to seal the win. The scoring was opened by Bukayo Saka on the other wing. Saka was not at his best but when the ball popped up he buried it, as Eze would to give the score a more authoritative look.
This is what Tuchel wants, players who get it done, clinicians who fulfil the brief, preferably without fuss, with a flourish if they have to, like Marcus under the eye of Hansi Flick.
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This is what some observers on X thought of it, or was it the lads at Football Insider reinforcing their own view with selective posts?
Antzharris10: “Marcus Rasford’s second touch is always a tackle.”
VERSA_T1LE was all in after barely half an hour: “Get Rashford off man, about five times he’s had the chance to pass, acts like he has the ability of Ronaldo with his ego when really he’s bang average.”
Akenooooooo screeched: “Rashford CANT start in the World Cup,” followed by crying emojis.
Flick’s firestarter, on the other hand? Perhaps he can, with a little more vamos, and a little less clutter.
