Gladiator Wayne Rooney is back in business

Tournaments have not been kind to Wayne Rooney. Nor has Wayne Rooney always been kind to tournaments. But the foul-up in Ukraine's defence that allowed the returning talisman to adorn his recall with a goal was the sweetest charity.

Sent off in the 2006 World Cup and listless in South Africa four years later, Rooney was forced by his own irascibility in Montenegro to wait until the third game of Euro 2012 for his chance to be England's saviour.

Memories of his dramatic impact on Euro 2004 as an 18 year-old have lost their force. The redemption plan was not going well until Steven Gerrard swung in yet another of his defence-baffling crosses and it bounced through defender and goalkeeper before popping onto Rooney's head.

It may have been hard work, but boy, did he mean business. Cool and reflective in Sunday's media sessions, he burst out of the line for the anthems and sprinted the full width of the pitch in the direction of a group of Ukraine supporters as if to throw down the challenge.

On his shoulders was a national debt: a need to repay the Stakhanovites who had furnished Roy Hodgson with four points from the games against France and Sweden. After the graft came the craft as Rooney slipped into the No?10 position behind Danny Welbeck in a 4-4-1-1 formation.

Guess what, though: suspensions come at a price not only to the team but the one suspended. With his strong build, and his need for a soft first touch to restore his confidence, Rooney is not the kind of player to find the high notes straight away after a spell on the sidelines.

So it proved when Ashley Young swung in a cross and the returning star glanced it high and wide from six-yards out. Would Andy Carroll have converted that chance? People were bound to ask that question but there was no going back to the debate about whether Rooney should have started here. Of course he should. But it was not a smooth recall against a Ukraine side inspired to heights of fizzy attacking play not seen in their first two matches.

What a torrid first 20 minutes Rooney returned to. Bewildered by darting Ukrainian moves, and sweeping passes behind their full-backs, England and Rooney were forced to confront the limitations of line-based play against a more kaleidoscopic philosophy. Oleg Blokhin's team plainly took a lesson from the England-Sweden game: load up on Steven Gerrard and Scott Parker in the centre and even that redoubtable pair will succumb to superior numbers.

Mentioning Pele in the same paragraph as Rooney is bound to encourage extrapolation along the lines of: "Pele. Rooney. One and the same."

What Roy Hodgson said on the eve of this Group D stress test was: "If you look back through the years, if you take Pele for example, he was capable of producing his very best football when it really mattered to help Brazil win World Cups.

"We do need that greatness... let's hope that Wayne Rooney can start to do that for us on Tuesday night. Then, if we win, who knows?"

Those romantic images were quickly swept away by the energy of Ukrainian attacks. His first major contribution was a 40-yard burst down England's left but moments later he miscontrolled a knock-down from Welbeck. Then came his chance: a Young cross that he seemed to compute wrongly as it dropped from the sky.

The Sheva v Wazza sub-plot was holed when Andrei Shvechenko was stuck on the bench after failing to recover fully from a knee injury. England must have thought it was Lottery-winning night. Goalscoring duties were assumed by Marko Devic and Artem Milevsky - who had 10 international goals from 71 caps, but made a mockery of those figures with their incisive forward play.

Rooney, 26, had 28 in 74 appearances in England's colours beforehand but not even he can join a tournament with the required speed of thought and body, especially in a side watching the ball whizz around off opposition boots.

The big test is always whether he allows that frustration to scramble his mind further or composes himself and goes in search of space and time.

In the event Yevhen Khacheridi (defender) and Andriy Pyatov (goalkeeper) had a present for him. So did the match officials when John Terry cleared a bouncing ball that was clearly over England's line. Victims in Bloemfontein when Frank Lampard 'scored' against Germany, England were the beneficiaries here of football's Luddite tendencies.

In few previous tournaments could England be called a 'lucky team' but somehow in Donetsk and Kiev managerial decisions have worked out, and chips seemed to be falling their way. The three group games have unfolded with a mounting sense of chaos, but England thrived on it.

At the heart of all this madness, finally, was the one player English football likes to thrust onto the big stage and say - Look at him, he's our gladiator - as Hodgson showed with his Pele remark. He always brings the drama.