Kobbie Mainoo had two turning points before his Manchester United debut

It is July 2022 and Mancheseter United have not long lost their penultimate pre-season friendly against Atletico Madrid in Oslo. Nearly 1,300 miles away at the J Davison Stadium, a United XI is preparing to face National League Altrincham.

Altrincham won 2-1 in a run-out so inconsequential that, at the time of writing, the eight-minute highlights of their victory have amassed only 3,500 views on YouTube. The Altrincham match reporter, John Edwards, should be particularly pleased with one sentence.

"With Kobbie Mainoo the pick of the United youngsters by some distance, but all of them comfortable in possession, there was plenty to admire about a first half that finished goalless."

The United anoraks in the crowd noticed Mainoo, aged 17, was not as scrawny as he was when he lifted the FA Youth Cup a few months earlier. With a first major winner's medal to treasure and a new face in the manager's office at Carrington, Mainoo had embarked on a personal pre-season before returning to Carrington.

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Alejandro Garnacho, Mainoo's teammate in the youth team, would start for United against Rayo Vallecano at Old Trafford the day after Altrincham hosted United. Garnacho had been included in Ten Hag's tour squad but did not play a minute in Thailand and Australia after some tardy timekeeping.

Frenkie de Jong was topical with United's pursuit of the Barcelona midfielder at an impasse. Zidane Iqbal, an academy graduate who modelled his game on De Jong, acquitted himself impressively from Bangkok to Perth, via Melbourne.

It was not until September 16 that Ten Hag and his assistant, Mitchell van der Gaag, watched Mainoo in the flesh for the Under-21s against West Ham. Again, it was at Altrincham, a ground United occasionally borrow for junior games.

Ten Hag is not a frequent attendant at academy matches but Altrincham's ground is a short journey for the cycling enthusiast and Hale resident. Without that bike ride, the wheels might have come off England's European Championship campaign.

Mainoo played 90 minutes in a goalless draw with West Ham. Exactly a month later, he was named on the United bench for the first time in the goalless draw with Newcastle.

Ten Hag felt Mainoo was already in his comfort zone at under-21 level and that he should have been more dominant against West Ham. Mainoo had already been summoned from the academy building for his first ad hoc promotion to first team training. He got to rub shoulders with Cristiano Ronaldo, Casemiro and new signing Antony the day after United beat Leicester in Ten Hag's fourth match in charge.

Iqbal's impact and Ten Hag's constructive criticism pushed Mainoo in the right direction. His father had also advised United staff to provide some tough love. Come the halfway point of Ten Hag's first season, Mainoo had usurped Iqbal, bound for Utrecht.

There has not been one outright breakthrough in Mainoo's nascent career. He showed teeth in the Goodison Park bear pit in his full Premier League debut in November but Ten Hag had planned to start last season with Mainoo in midfield until he was lucklessly injured after 74 seconds against Real Madrid in a pre-season friendly.

Mainoo was so accomplished in midfield against the Arsenal duo of Declan Rice and Martin Odegaard at the start of that tour that he was accommodated with Casemiro, Bruno Fernandes and new signing Mason Mount five days later in the defeat to Madrid.

Long before Everton, Mainoo was the story to write home about from the winter training camp in Cadiz in December 2022. He made his debut a month later and was permanently promoted to the first team squad but a quad injury ended his first season in early April.

United staff at the Montecastillo Hotel spoke optimistically about Mainoo during a training session journalists were invited to observe. "That's when he (Ten Hag) first saw me properly," Mainoo told me in May.

"That's the first time I played under him in a game and, definitely to score in that (the friendly against Cadiz) was definitely me turning a corner, him seeing me. And then I trained with them a lot more and got to show myself a lot more."

Two breakthroughs preceded breakdowns. Everton was third time lucky. Mainoo has not suffered an injury since the Real Madrid winger Rodrygo accidentally collided with his ankle last July.

The Uruguay coach Marcelo Bielsa delivered an erudite lecture last week on how the commercialisation of football was diluting it as a spectacle. The European Championship has been sterile and its change in format from 16 teams to 24 teams has sapped its quality.

Then you watch Lamine Yamal outclass France with such grace it makes you wonder if the divine Lionel Messi bathed him in holy water for that baby calendar shoot in 2007. Then you watch Mainoo dance past Dutch midfielders like a disciple of Cruyff.

Pep Guardiola told us we were "lucky" to watch a 17-year-old Phil Foden in Houston seven years ago. We were.

They were also lucky at Altrincham two years ago.