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Rooney turned sharply dumping Danny Gabbidon on the turf and clipped a cross towards the penalty spot No

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Rooney turned sharply, dumping Danny Gabbidon on the turf, and clipped a cross towards the penalty spot No one was there. He waved his arms in the air at the lack of support while, time and again, England floated in deep crosses aimed at Rooney's head. He's good in the air but it was a meat and drink tactic for the three Welsh central defenders. And he is also so much superior to those around him.There was a sporting criminality about yesterday's proceedings and how, increasingly, Rooney became isolated as Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard tried to run past him, cutting him out to try to receive David Beckham's Hollywood passes, while the wingers Joe Cole and Shaun Wright-Phillips, in particular, invaded his space.One incident, on 18 minutes, summed that up. Except none of the others was asked to play in the role allocated to Rooney yesterday It's not a match-winning position. It's not a position designed to exploit his talents but, rather, to fit a team pattern - and crucially to accommodate others. But England are at a stage now where, surely, the team should be built around him even if he is still not out of his teens So what He is that good.

We shall have to wait to see if certain administrators remain too full of their own importance to take a wider and wiser view.Apart from personal considerations such as status and free trips, the main reason they hold office is, presumably, to promote and develop the game among the youth of their nation.How could they reconcile that respon-sibility with the deliberate withholding of Olympic participation from the brightest of their progeny in 2012?. A great team, a tournament-winning team, can be assembled around just one peerless performer. Pele, Franz Beckenbauer, Diego Maradona, Zinedine Zidane have all proved that. There's no reason why Wayne Rooney cannot be another to join that stellar list Indeed there's every reason to believe he should. For the supporters of all four countries to be represented in a major football championship would not only be unique but an opportunity it would be criminal to miss.Teams competing in the Olympics are limited to players under 23 plus up to three over-age players.

With home advantage we would have a strong chance of reaching the final stages. He is not bothered if the four have a play-off, with the winning country carrying the GB banner, but that would deprive the best of the rest from a chance of an Olympic medal.It wouldn't do much for the fans either. But London's winning of the 2012 Olympics means that a GB team would qualify automatically as host country. Blatter has confirmed in writing to each of the four associations that their participation as one team would not threaten their independence in the future. As tempting as that sounds, we can but hope that the four home nations reach a sensible concord about this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for our best young players of the time.Because of the obduracy of some of the administrators concerned, Scottish stubbornness leading the way, I've long abandoned banging my head against this particular brick wall.They are terrified of risking their auto-mony, and there had been also the practical difficulty of qualifying. And when they arrive it should be down to the normal 12th man.Gold medal for obduracyEarly reaction from the Scottish FA to a directive from the Fifa president, Sepp Blatter, that a Great Britain team will compete in the 2012 Olympic Games suggests that Scots would play in that team only over their dead bodies.

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