There was a moment midway through the first half of England’s comfortable win over Ivory Coast where a scooped, mis-hit back pass ballooned into the air and began to drop above the head of Harry Maguire. It is a sizable head, as you may have heard, and was at one time enough to earn him cult status among the supporters who follow him. You might call it his defining feature.
Except, it isn’t. Though built like your archetypal centre-half, a bit top-heavy and as wide as he is tall, Maguire’s gifts are in his feet. As the ball fell from the sky above him, he did not head it away. Instead he backed up, set himself and plucked out of the air with one of the finest first touches witnessed all evening at Wembley, which sent a ripple of applause and a gentle coo around the crowd.
