Close attention: Wayne Rooney found little space against the USA

As the seconds ticked by before England’s World Cup started, before the release of weeks of tension, build-up, expectation and desire, Wayne Rooney gave a little indication he was feeling the pressure. He licked his lips in that dry-mouthed, edgy way that showed the enormity of what he was about to embark upon was hitting home. His eyes darted. He was feeling it.

This could still be Rooney’s World Cup. He is 24, he has 61 caps, it is six years since he threatened to overwhelm all-comers at Euro 2004 before injury which was the only thing that appeared capable of stopping him, denied him.

He is England’s main man. One of the world’s best. They talk of the Big Five when it comes to safaris in these parts but Rooney is part of the Big Four - along with Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Kaka (with a doff of deference to that talented little Spanish quartet of Villa, Torres, Xavi, Iniesta).

Great players mark out this tournament as their own. Pele in 1970, Cruyff in 1974, Maradona in 1986 even. Rooney can claim this one, though Messi has made an early play for it. Rooney has that belief, that ability and that extra Maradona-like quality of being a street fighter who can drag his team through when things are not quite right, when their backs are against the wall.

The eulogies came thick and fast in the run-up to last night with Steven Gerrard claiming his friend had the same ability as Messi while Cruyff simply called him the “complete player”.

England need him. No other 'big’ nation at the World Cup, not Brazil, Spain or Argentina, depends on one player as much as England do Rooney. For all his diktats around the team, the spirit, the confidence, Fabio Capello knows that and believes that also which is partly why he continues to start with Emile Heskey. He knows Rooney is more comfortable with Heskey in the side than either Peter Crouch or Jermain Defoe. And even Capello wants to keep Rooney happy.

The USA knew that threat also. Coach Bob Bradley had spent most of the last week fielding questions of how to stop and whether his players would attempt to provoke Rooney. What they did, instead, was what Capello would have done. They got in his face, they didn’t cede an inch. They tracked and covered and got close to England’s main weapon who, disappointingly, struggled to cope with the attention.

Instead it was Heskey who was taking the fight. His wonderful lay-off teed up Gerrard for England’s early goal and, time and again, he provoked the American defence into fouls with his presence while he chased down forward passes. He even inflicted a bone-rattling challenge on Tim Howard although he also, predictably enough, fluffed a clear chance, shooting straight at the US goalkeeper.

Not that it was pretty. England were struggling for possession. Gerrard tried, Frank Lampard miscued. Rooney came deeper and deeper for the ball and twice, with crisp, angled passes switched the point of attack with balls out to Aaron Lennon on one flank and Ashley Cole on the other.

But this was not where Capello wants Rooney to play. He was too far away from the centre of goal, foraging on scraps. Rooney, like this, was not a threat.

Recently the striker had joked that one of his problems at Manchester United, when Ronaldo was there was that he was often expected to get on the end of his own crosses. There was a reminder of that last night.

Capello will have been furious. He has not spent two years drilling it into his squad to get Rooney playing more centrally for him to then have to try and make things happen for himself. Again. This was not how he has gathered 43 goals in 59 appearances this season, this was, however, how he gets frustrated as he did in his last World Cup appearance, being sent off against Portugal.

Capello had eulogised how “spontaneous and instinctive” Rooney was but he needed the ball and the lack of it started to take its toll. Rooney’s touch began to desert him in the over-eagerness to make his meagre rations count.

In fairness, however, he remained controlled, his temper in check, no sign of rage. He ran and ran and tried to haul himself into it.

The nerves will have evaporated now, replaced instead by a sense of frustration and an enduring desire to still make a difference.