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While Tuesday's match between England and Slovenia has potentially important implications early in their World Cup qualifying group in UEFA, the big story leading up to the match has nothing to do with the table and everything to do with a player who might not even play in the match, with Wayne Rooney having been dropped to the bench by interim manager Gareth Southgate.
Southgate made a bold announcement on Monday when he told the press that he wouldn't be including Rooney in the starting lineup, a decision that's drawn criticism from many. Despite being in decidedly mediocre club form lately for Manchester United and not regularly being a major contributor to the national team in some time, many England fans are not eager to give up on the most-capped outfield player in the history of the men's national team, even if it's just in one game managed by an interim boss in Southgate.
And it's not as though Southgate's decision is at all unwarranted. England looked slow and struggled to click in the final third in a 2-0 win over lowly Malta over the weekend, a result that drew criticism for England not winning by a much wider margin. Rooney started in that match and was a major part of those struggles in their attack, failing to distribute the ball as effectively as he needed to and rarely making the needed runs to help open up Malta's defense. Is it so unreasonable for Southgate to want to try someone else in that role, to see if he has a player who can do more to help the national team going forward? It doesn't seem like it should be.
To watch this match online in the U.S. you can stream it on ESPN3 or WatchESPN. The match won't be shown online in Slovenia or England, but for listings in other countries you can check out LiveSoccerTV.
TV: ESPN2 (U.S. - English), ESPN Deportes+ (U.S. - Spanish), TV Slvenija 2 (Slovenia), ITV 1 (U.K.)
Match Date/Time: Day, 2:45 p.m. ET, 8:45 p.m. local
Venue: Stadion Stožice, Ljubljana, Slovenia