Hold on a minute, rewind the tape. Play it again. Jack Grealish and Marcus Rashford are left out of the England squad. England players use a £421 (€500) smart ring to boost their Euro chances. Gary Lineker and Alan Shearer’s podcast comments infuriate many. Some throw (plastic) beer cups at Gareth Southgate (and miss). Jude Bellingham walks into a garden for an “obscene gesture”. A 19-year-old runs England’s midfield in his first international tournament. Bellingham is fined for his “obscene gesture” but doesn’t get a game. Southgate angrily responds to critics. Southgate fumes at tactical “leaks” in the media.
Like in the famous viral video of the bear emulating Michael Jackson’s moonwalk, there are times when it’s easy to get lost in the noise, the distractions, following loose ends and not noticing something quite unusual unfolding right before our eyes. Like Kobbie Mainoo, who in the short time it takes to read this paragraph has already made three passes and slipped behind the defender to get the ball back to him.
Statistics only tell part of the story, but the data is worth looking at. As we reach the final stages of the tournament, Mainoo sits in sixth place with 94.4% of successful passes. Ahead of him are Serbia’s Sasa Lukic, Belgium’s Orel Mangala and three defenders. Behind them are Rodri (93.2%), Aurélien Tchouaméni (93%), Jorginho (91.2%), Granit Xhaka (90.7%), Toni Kroos (90.4%) and Luka Modric (86%).
It should also be noted that these are not pass-throughs, restarting balls with minimal pressure. The numbers, and what we see, confirm that Mainoo has frequently been operating in the most crowded area of the pitch, where the margins are narrower and space is scarce. Against Switzerland, what he did was mainly receive the ball surrounded by three opponents in red shirts, much bigger than him, whom he dodged and kept at bay. More than half of the balls he touches are received in the central third of the pitch, and 38% are in the third closest to the opponent’s goal.
At this point, it’s worth providing some context. Quietly, and for the space of two games, England have arguably basically solved the midfield problem that has been keeping managers up at night since… Sven-Göran Eriksson? Bobby Robson? Walter Winterbottom? Season after season, English football has suffered from its chronic inability to produce a midfielder who could easily and productively receive the ball, keep possession and control the midfield. “If I’m honest, we’ve had a shortage of that type of player for seven or eight years,” Southgate lamented before the tournament. “At times, that has affected the way we’ve been able to play.”
So here he is. Let us not forget that he is only 19. Perhaps there are similarities here with his instant impact on Erik ten Hag’s Manchester United this season: a dysfunctional collective for whom midfield is not simply a weakness but a kind of scourge, the source of their most intense fears. To come in and somehow contribute not only calms but gives hope, not just by recycling the game, but also by taking it forward, not just by having the ball but by asking for it and enjoying it: yes, this is new, even revolutionary, and perhaps the secret of his success (so far) has been to try not to make too much of it.
Because unless you pay close attention, it’s not obvious what Mainoo has been up to out there. He hasn’t scored, he hasn’t provided an assist. He has no blistering speed and no desire to reveal all his tricks. In fact, discretion is key. For decades English football has had midfielders who see their role as one of showmanship, never content with taking one touch if they can take three, unhappy with possession until they’ve done something eye-catching. Keen, above all, to be seen.
Mainoo, on the other hand, wants to disappear. Of course, there are highlights: a very precise long pass, the turn and run with which he outran two Swiss players in the quarter-finals, allowing him to advance 45 metres across the middle of the pitch. But most of what he does is combination play. He gets others involved. He draws defenders in and creates space elsewhere.
Here, everything happens with the opponent very close, with the ball held between his quick and intelligent feet, which are not satisfied with the easy back pass or the long, low-percentage diagonal pass. In 210 minutes of football, he has played only five long balls, and has made more touches in the attacking third (per 90 minutes) than Bellingham or Harry Kane. Against Switzerland, his midfield partner, Declan Rice, made 25 passes to Jordan Pickford or the two defensive midfielders, essentially restarting the game. Mainoo made three of those passes, and one of them was the kick-off.
In some ways, this is probably the last major tournament in which Mainoo will be able to enjoy relative anonymity. The English football culture of anointing overnight saviours, shouldering everything until they succumb, will probably catch up with him too. He has no messianic nickname, no song, no mural or advertising for colognes. The temptation from now on will be to put him in the spotlight, make him the star, “build the team around him”, whatever that means.
Maybe this is what he wants, but it’s hard to believe that it’s what he needs. Before the tournament he was interviewed by the lifestyle magazine Dazed and Confusedwhere he explained, with a trademark simplicity, his way of seeing football in his early years. “I thought it was fun,” he explained, “and I still do.” In a context where everything tends to be grandiose, operatic, melodramatic, bland, the very appearance of Mainoo seems like a small act of progress.
This article is a collaboration with The Guardian. Jonathan Liew is a sports journalist at The Guardian.
You can follow EL PAÍS Sports on Facebook and Xor sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter.
