From the outside looking in, to borrow the words that Joe Gomez uses, nobody would have realised. When the Liverpool defender stepped on to England’s main training pitch at St George’s Park on Tuesday, it was his first involvement with the squad since November 2020. Everybody knew that and, as such, recognised it was a moment in time, something special.
What they did not realise, as a top footballer went through a fairly routine session, was what was bubbling on the inside. For Gomez, it was a return to the scene of his most traumatic episode, when an innocuous movement, the kind he had performed throughout his career without thinking, had life‑changing consequences.
