It wasn’t so long ago that Marcus Rashford was widely and fondly viewed as English soccer’s national treasure. This week, though, is set to underscore his declining status for both club and country, reports AP.
For Manchester United, it’s the team’s biggest game of the season so far — an elimination match against Atletico Madrid in the last 16 of the Champions League on Tuesday.
Two days later, England names its squad for the friendly matches against Ivory Coast and Switzerland, the third-to-last selection by coach Gareth Southgate before he picks the players he wants to represent the country at the World Cup in Qatar. There’s a chance Rashford isn’t involved in either.
The 24-year-old forward hasn’t played a single minute for his country since missing a penalty in the shootout loss to Italy in the European Championship final in July.
And in the intervening eight months, Rashford has gradually slipped down the pecking order of attackers at United.
To such an extent that, a week ago, he couldn’t make the starting lineup in a derby match against Manchester City despite the club having four forwards — Cristiano Ronaldo, Edinson Cavani, Mason Greenwood and Anthony Martial — unavailable for various reasons.
It has even got to the point where Rashford, a local lad from Manchester, could yet even leave his boyhood team. That possibility was raised by United manager Ralf Rangnick last week.
Such a scenario seemed unthinkable last season. One of the regulars in United’s team under then-coach Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, he was also the talk of Britain off the field, having forced the government twice to perform U-turns on its social policy during the pandemic because of his campaigning on behalf of vulnerable children.
It was only in November that he received his MBE, or Member of the Order of the British Empire, for his activism.
“He is not only a top footballer but also a fantastic human being,” Solskjaer said of Rashford. “Future captain, maybe of England and Manchester United.”
The slide in his career, then, has been stark.
At least for the moment, the spark has gone from a player who, in October, was urged by Solskjaer to “prioritize his football” to cope with the challenges of playing for United and England, in the wake of all the remarkable things he has done off the field.
Time will tell if this is simply a minor blip in a career that promised so much. Either way, this week could be a sobering one for Rashford.
Source: Bahrain News Agency