Opinion: Mainoo's amazing journey should fill every Red with pride
Just 1,799 people watched Kobbie Mainoo's first competitive 90 minutes of 2023/24 in the flesh.
The setting? Not the grandeur of Old Trafford, or the torrential intensity of Dortmund's Westfalenstadion the other night, but Salford City's smart, humble Peninsula Stadium.
That night, I and hundreds of other Reds huddled within the small away end behind the goal and watched a fantastic contest between our Under-21s and Salford City, which finished 4-3 in the Ammies' favour. The competition? The Bristol Street Motors Trophy.
As I watched Mainoo help to orchestrate England's exciting 2-1 win over the Netherlands on Wednesday night, I couldn't help but think back to that night, and the amazing journey Kobbie has been on during the last eight months.
Put simply, it is beggars belief. How can a 19-year-old glide so serenely through something as totemic as a European Championship semi-final, in the most difficult position on the pitch, emerging as arguably his country's most impressive star?
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We've become desensitised to Kobbie's supreme poise and elegance on the ball; the unflappable ease with which he can slide away from pressure. But thinking back to that night in deepest, darkest Salford, the epic scope of what Mainoo has achieved in 2023/24 vaulted back to the front of my brain.
Not all Manchester United fans are England fans, of course. I consider myself as an England well-wisher, rather than a diehard.
But watching our no.37 progress through this tournament has given me great pleasure.
Perhaps the overriding emotion, as a Greater Manchester-born Red like Mainoo himself, is pride. And I'm sure many of you feel the same way.
Making your full Premier League debut at Goodison Park, in front of tens of thousands of amped-up Everton fans, is not easy.
Going to Anfield, weeks later – as part of a mish-mash United team shorn of Bruno Fernandes – and excelling in a really tough goalless draw is not easy.
Scoring your first Premier League goal, in the 97th minute at Molineux, seconds after Wolves had equalised to make it 3-3, is not easy.
I'll knock the repetition on the head before it gets too tedious, but hopefully you get the point: only the most special players, the rarest of characters, can routinely make the magical seem mundane.
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And on Kobbie has continued from there.
For Reds everywhere, the finish Mainoo applied to that United move in the FA Cup final against City will remain the apogee of this calendar year – however England fare on Sunday – but the international stuff just ramps up your admiration for the lad that little bit further.
For Reds everywhere, the finish Mainoo applied to that United move in the FA Cup final against City will remain the apogee of this calendar year – however England fare on Sunday – but the international stuff just ramps up your admiration for the lad that little bit further.
Not many English United players have played in major finals: Sir Bobby Charlton and Nobby Stiles in 1966, Harry Maguire, Marcus Rashford and Luke Shaw in 2021.
Plenty more all-time greats have fallen short: Gary Neville, Bryan Robson, Wayne Rooney, Paul Scholes and many others. In Neville's autobiography, Red, a palpable sense of the pressure and weight of international football came across very, very clearly.
"It should be fantastic, the best moments of your life," wrote Nev. "But there is no doubt that too many players spend too much time fearing the consequence of failure when they pull on an England shirt."
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That is not happening with Mainoo, and we just hope, hope, hope he can cradle that youthful insouciance for as long as possible.
Whatever happens in Berlin this weekend, we're all buzzing at what he is producing for both club and country, and excited that this burgeoning career should have many great years left to run.
But whoever you are rooting for in the final, and however our midfield prodigy plays, spare a moment for the Peninsula Stadium and the 31 October 2023 come the full-time whistle.
It's been an amazing journey, no matter how easy Kobbie has made it seem.