Defoe may join Rooney in strike force

World Cup 2006: Muddle and accident shape the future of football as much as a manager's scheming. To England's surprise, they find themselves preparing to set Wayne Rooney and Jermain Defoe at the Wales defence on Saturday. Michael Owen is only 24 but, with a back injury making his involvement uncertain, it is almost as if an older generation is leaving the stage.

The 18-year-old Rooney has been a touchstone of the country's hopes ever since he made his first start against Turkey in April 2003. That would have been enough of a youth revolution for even those spectators with the shortest of attention spans, but further novelty may be on the way.

It must be a fast-track promotion that sweeps Defoe, who is 22 tomorrow, from being a standby who did not reach Euro 2004 to the man who may be kicking off in a crucial World Cup qualifier. His eagerness has jostled Sven-Goran Eriksson into elevating him so soon.

Despite the deftness, there is an impatience to the striker that is almost raw. It led him to a booking for a thoughtless challenge on Everton's David Weir last weekend. The collapse of his self-control was even less pardonable last season when his dissatisfaction over being stuck at West Ham saw him estrange himself from the club with offences that brought suspension.

In short, he is not an unblemished enthusiast. None the less, goalscorers thrive only when there is some degree of self-absorption. Without it, he might not have whirled round his marker and put the team ahead with an exuberant finish against Poland in his first start for England last month.

A lack of reflection and an obliviousness to dogged team play is also at the heart of Rooney's achievements. His mind assesses situations with remarkable speed, but there is another part of him that barely calculates at all as a goal is scored almost intuitively.

The combination of Defoe and Rooney is therefore an enthralling possibility. Wales's likely centre-half partnership of Danny Gabbidon and Andy Melville is less equipped to block their path than others they have, separately, brushed aside before.

And yet it must make a difference if too much depends solely on them.

Eriksson is being stampeded into a trust in them. Since the 2002 World Cup, Teddy Sheringham has grown too old, Robbie Fowler has dimmed and Emile Heskey is attempting to re-establish at Birmingham the confidence he lost at Liverpool; there is no longer a place for him even in the outskirts of the England squad.

Darius Vassell, unsure of selection at Aston Villa, has turned into a stereotype, rigidly viewed by Eriksson as a useful substitute for the very late phases of a match. The manager speaks well of Alan Smith, but his target-man qualities will not always suit an England team who like to prosper through rapid counter-attack.

It is a joy for Eriksson to name Rooney, but he may turn to Defoe primarily out of necessity. He has the air of a man eager to cling to his faith in Owen, if only the vice-captain can confirm his fitness in tomorrow's practice session.

There is, after all, no cause for Eriksson to discard lightly a forward who has provided 14 goals in 23 competitive matches during the Swede's tenure. Even Defoe might pause to wonder about the size of the gap in the team he would be trying to fill.