Arsenal's Jack Wilshere is the prodigy promoted to the senior squad for tonight's friendly against Hungary, but Jack Rodwell of Everton must have run him close and can only have impressed Fabio Capello, who was at Ashton Gate last night, with a dominant, man-of-the-match performance for Stuart Pearce's intermediates.
Danny Rose and Martin Kelly scored the goals but it was the 19-year-old Rodwell, captain for the night in the absence of Micah Richards, who caught the eye and left the field to a standing ovation in the second half. It may have been no coincidence that Capello left soon afterwards.
"When I gave Jack the armband I asked him for a captain's performance and he certainly gave me one," said Pearce. David Moyes, the Everton manager, was not the only one to raise an eyebrow when Wilshere, who has yet to start a Premier League match for Arsenal, was picked ahead of Rodwell, who started 16 for his club last season.
The pre-match talk was all about Frank Fielding's promotion from the Under-21s and Blackburn's reserves to fill the vacancy created by England's sudden dearth of goalkeepers, but afterwards Pearce was left enthusing about Rodwell's precocious maturity. Playing as part of a two-man screen in front of the back four, in the 4-2-3-1 formation that is now in vogue, the young Evertonian had the influence of a born leader, and was only substituted after an hour as a favour to his club, who need him fit and firing in their season's opener against Blackburn at the weekend.
After the dismal poverty of the senior team's performance at the World Cup, the door has never opened wider for the country's young wannabes, but they need to be playing regularly for their clubs if they are to displace the established order when England's competitive matches come along. Only Rodwell, Blackburn's Phil Jones and, to a lesser extent, Victor Moses of Wigan look like doing that and, in the phrase beloved of managers everywhere, the material available suits evolution, rather than revolution.
England played well enough to deserve their winning margin, but the standard of the opposition needs to be borne in mind. Uzbekistan should have been routed, and would have been but for some shoddy finishing, with Chelsea's Daniel Sturridge the principal culprit, and for the impressive shot-stopping of Sanjar Kuvvatov, in the Uzbeks' goal.
England were stymied until the 64th minute, when Tottenham's Danny Rose scored from 20 yards. Their second came from Liverpool's Martin Kelly, on as substitute, who doubled the margin with a well-placed header from Kyle Walker's cross.
The result left Pearce and company in good heart for the resumption of their European Championship qualifying campaign, where they have left themselves with plenty to do. Defeat against Greece in their last competitive fixture, in March, requires them to beat Portugal and Lithuania if they are to reach the play-offs.