Jadon Sancho arrives at Manchester United undisturbed by Euro setback

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer banking on a productive partnership with Marcus Rashford

Jadon Sancho is set to team up with Marcus Rashford at Manchester United. Reuters

One failed penalty, however high profile, need not stall a fine run of form. As Jadon Sancho prepared for the official announcement of one of the major transfers of the summer, he was reminded by the bosses at Manchester United they have staked a hefty fee on him because he is a footballer climbing ever-higher peaks very fast indeed.

Sancho, who completed his medical at United on Tuesday ahead of confirming an €80m-plus move from Borussia Dortmund, finished Euro 2020 utterly downcast.

He had been brought on by England for his 22nd cap as a substitute late in extra-time of Sunday’s final against Italy - specifically to be available for the penalty shoot-out that decided the championship. He took England’s fourth spot-kick. It was saved. Two penalties later, Italy were champions of Europe.

There was no questioning the choice of Sancho as penalty-taker - analysts working with the England coaches identified the winger, in studies, as one of the sharpest to react to a goalkeeper’s initial movement - and he converted all his three penalties last season for Dortmund.

There was, though, the difficult, abrupt responsibility, with almost no lead-in, at Wembley. He only came on to the pitch in the 119th minute of the match, along with Marcus Rashford, who hit the post with England’s third penalty.

Sancho, Maguire and United's most expensive signings

Rashford will be club colleagues as of later this week. He and Sancho are already friends. The association of the two, probably operating from opposite wings of a front three, excites Ole Gunnar Solskjaer - the United manager who is a long-time admirer of Sancho.

But Rashford looks likely to miss several weeks of the new Premier League season because of shoulder surgery. That raises the pressure on Sancho to make a quick impact, not least as the new focus of United’s counter-attacking.

With only one start during Euro 2020, Sancho could not carry all his momentum from the last club season into England’s campaign but Solskjaer hopes to harness the confidence the player built up in his farewell weeks at Dortmund.

He finished his four years in Germany with a trophy, the German Cup, which no player dominated like Sancho. He scored twice in the final and set up another in the 4-1 win over RB Leipzig. He had scored in all but one of the five previous rounds and finished with the spectacular tally, from six Cup matches, of six goals and five assists.

But for an injury lay-off in the early spring, Sancho dazzled throughout the second half of last season. “From the winter break training camp onwards,” remarked Michael Zorc, Dortmund’s outgoing director of football, “Sancho played with huge enthusiasm and drive.”

The profit made on Sancho, brought to Germany from Manchester City for around €9m when he was 17, endorses Zorc and Dortmund’s reputation as one of the game’s shrewdest buyers and sellers of young talent. The numbers Sancho, who only turned 21 in March, leaves from his Dortmund career are outstanding. He registered 50 goals in his 144 matches, a very high figure for a winger, and for one who was still a teenager for most of his time at the club.

Dortmund colleagues, such as Marco Reus and Erling Haaland, appreciated the passes and the dribbles that stretched opposition defences as much as Sancho’s goals. He assisted 64 goals for others while at Dortmund. That’s almost one every two matches.

Sancho’s success made him a pioneer, the first of several young English players to move to Germany since he joined Dortmund. Leaving City to move abroad in 2017, without a senior match to his name, had not been easy. City resisted the move initially, but Sancho was convinced he would not gain, in Pep Guardiola’s talented squad, the playing time in the first-team he wanted.

His return to Manchester, but to its red half, spices up the local rivalry. When Sancho, who was at the Watford academy until he was 14, was first shown around City, they were still training very close to the Carrington site that will be his new place of work with United. City’s Phil Foden, who endured some frustrations breaking into the City first-team, was Sancho’s friend and colleague in City’s academy sides.

The first weekend of November, then, looms large in Sancho’s diary. It’s the date of the first Manchester derby of the new league season. It’s his past against his future, and he has plenty of time ahead of it to regain the club form he has shown so far this year.