When Kobbie Mainoo made his England start against Brazil on Saturday, Declan Rice told him how much he loved him. Mainoo plays midfield for Manchester United.
Mainoo, 18, has had a great first season at United and was called up to the Three Lions squad for the first time last week. He was first named to the Under-21 team. The teenage star substituted Conor Gallagher after being put on the bench and played the last 15 minutes at Wembley.
Even though Mainoo only played for a quarter of the game, he didn’t look out of place and showed how cool, composed, and technically skilled he is. The young player for United did a great job playing with Rice in the middle of the field, with Phil Foden playing as the number 10 ahead of them.
An Instagram post after his England debut said, “Special feeling making my senior @England debut at Wembley and in front of my family.” Something I’ll never forget. “Now we get back on track for Tuesday,” followed by a heart emoji.
There were a lot of comments from his England and United friends, and Rice was one of them. Rice praised Mainoo. “There will be many more! Rice wrote, “Congrats, bro,” and then added a heart and a cheering emoji.
United center Bruno Fernandes added, “First of many,” along with an emoji of hands raised. Luke Shaw said, “What a player,” and Harry Maguire said, “Deserved mate.” Mainoo was also praised by Cole Palmer, James Maddison, Teden Mengi, and Alejandro Garnacho.
Southgate talked about why he chose to bring on Mainoo, who was only moved up to the senior team because of a lot of injuries in camp. The England manager said that Kyle was a chance for him to try something new.
“We needed to refresh some of the team because we’ve got to manage their minutes a little bit, so that’s a strange situation when it’s a game of that size but that’s where we are.”
“Getting Kobbie on the field was a great moment for him and his family.” “You saw a few turns and some really calm moments that give you a sense of what he could become,” he said.
Following his first start in the Premier League against Everton in November, Mainoo has become an important part of the United team. He has played 15 of their last 16 games and scored his first Premier League goal in their 4-3 win over Wolves last month.
Ten Hag said, “I think very quickly I saw him,” after Mainoo scored a last-second goal at Molineux on February 1. I think I saw him for the first time in the fall of last year. At the time, I thought he was playing too comfortably for the Under-21s and that he should be much more powerful.
“We pushed him a lot on that side by pushing him in training, and you can see that he’s making such great progress. He’s almost getting better every game.”
It’s great to see him so calm, just like he was when he scored his goal. I hope he stays that way. I think he is a good person and that he is driven to keep making progress.
