Jadon Sancho’s dazzling Dortmund performance has given Gareth Southgate a dilemma ahead of Euro 2024… he should at least watch the Man United exile in Paris next week, writes CRAIG HOPE

Gareth Southgate would do well to book a Eurostar to Paris on Tuesday. Because he might find a Euros star there.

Jadon Sancho has given the England boss a decision. It could be an easy decision as Southgate last chose the winger almost three years ago and had doubts about attitude and timekeeping.

But he cannot ignore the best-performing Englishman in the last four of the Champions League without considering a recall. Regardless of who is the best Englishman, Sancho was better than the French, Germans, Portuguese and Brazilians in Borussia Dortmund’s 1-0 win over Paris Saint-Germain on Wednesday.

In the German newspaper Bild he was the only player to receive a merit rating of 1, the highest score and reserved for outstanding contributions. But in reality, people here in Germany didn’t see it coming.

On the eve of the match, football writer Cedric Gebhardt from the newspaper Ruhr Nachrichten told the BBC: ‘Sancho misses the ease and confidence of his first spell at Dortmund. He dribbles less often and also has too little speed and loses the ball too often.’

Southgate should attend the second leg of the semi-final to assess Sancho’s performance

It was not a left-field opinion, and fans have (or had) reservations about the idea of ​​signing Sancho from Manchester United, where he will return this summer when his loan spell expires. The consensus, at least before Wednesday’s first leg, was that he was not the same player as before.

That was backed up by his decent, if not spectacular, performance in the quarter-final win over Atletico Madrid. As Mail Sport noted this week: ‘There is now something of Jack Grealish version 2.0 about Sancho, the safe model who looks expressionless.’

Grealish, one of the contenders for an attacking midfield spot in Southgate’s squad, can no longer play like Sancho did against PSG. Neither does Marcus Rashford. What he achieved – thirteen completed dribbles, the most in a semi-final since Lionel Messi in 2008 – is unique. Modern players don’t do that anymore. They are programmed to be risk averse, to keep possession within a wider team structure.

At a major tournament, risk and reward are sometimes the only strategy a coach has left. A dribbler can also bypass these opposition structures. Would Sancho be the perfect impact player in such a scenario?

Sancho hasn’t played for England since 2021, but he could be a useful option at Euro 2024

But perhaps that’s why he has little chance of changing Southgate’s mind. Before the first match of Euro 2020 against Croatia at Wembley, Sancho is said to have reacted sullenly to the fact that he was not in the starting XI. What’s the point of selecting a player to come off the bench if he doesn’t want to be a substitute?

During a post-match interview with Jamie Carragher for US network CBS, Sancho admitted he retains England ambitions. Could it be that his humble spell at United brought maturity, clipped wings, but with it a more grounded personality? They certainly speak well of the 24-year-old as a person here.

He’s no Jude Bellingham – the Real Madrid star is a man for Sancho’s boy – but he has shone brighter than his former Dortmund team-mate on the same stage this week. And here’s another consideration: While Bellingham and others have looked a little jaded lately, Sancho is fresh. This was only his twentieth game of the season, having spent the first half of the season in the cold room at Old Trafford.

But will Southgate continue to give him the cold shoulder? Next week he should at least make a trip to the scorching surroundings of the Parc des Princes. After all, he went to see Jordan Henderson play for Ajax.

Should Sancho catch fire again in Paris, it will leave the England boss with a burning dilemma.