The cap fits for Rooney over recall

I COULD be a puritanical so-and-so about Wayne Rooney’s England recall.

I could rattle on about caps being earned, about a retired international denying a young player game time and experience, blah blah blah.

But the renaissance late in his career has been fantastic — Rooney (right) has set a very good example for English footballers in America and you can’t say that of every player who has headed that way in recent years.

On top of all that, his inclusion in next week’s friendly against the United States is going to raise a lot of money for charity, so I’m all for it.

I might not have been a few years ago, but you could argue David Beckham was awarded more caps than he deserved simply because people wanted to get him to the outfield appearance record and that moved us into a new dimension.

If anyone deserves a glorified testimonial, it’s England’s record goal-scorer so, genuinely, I have no problem with it.

I UNDERSTAND why Jurgen Klopp has left Xherdan Shaqiri behind for tonight’s trip to Red Star Belgrade.

Liverpool have a big enough squad to cope without him and he has been in good enough form to know he’s not been dropped.

But I’d have loved to have seen him go there, score a couple of goals and have people say: “Fair play, he had the character to come here and do that.”

Sport can be brilliant at breaking down barriers in that way.