England glimpse at promised land with a draw to Brazil

red puts Brazil ahead after Hernanes had hit the bar with Joe Hart well beaten

In Wayne Rooney’s case, everyone had almost forgotten. He needed to make a statement. He needed to lift a load off his mind at the end of a troubling season. He needed to remind the world and himself that he was born to do special things with a football, not to mope and worry.

So he did it by scoring for England from 25 yards on the night they re-opened the stadium where the Brazilians had just spent the first half of this extraordinary match teaching the English why the Maracana requires a much bigger trophy room than Wembley.

Out of a night which looked like it was going to confirm so many depressing realities for Roy Hodgson’s schizophrenic team, Rooney summoned up a moment befitting the grand stage here.

It was a reminder that the unique and gifted sportsmen can do the unexpected at the most critical moments. It will, it is to be hoped, inspire the men around him who looked so sluggish for so long last night that there may be similar glories and grandeur on offer to them in this land of football passion and romance if they sort out their haphazard World Cup qualifying campaign.

Neymar was a constant threat against England at the Maracana stadium last night

How infuriating can this England team be? Forty-seven years of hurt. And counting

With any luck – and still we will need it – Rooney is now going to charge through England’s Autumn of qualifiers fuelled by the dazzling memory of what he did. In fact, if he wants to come back here and do the same thing all over again at the tournament next summer, then his mission is already clear. He may, indeed, be surplus to requirements at Manchester United but England simply cannot do without him.

How infuriating can this England team be? Forty-seven years of hurt. And counting. Then a polite, but damning, observation in the Maracana’s match programme that they “have not been much of a threat since 1996”. Last night’s first-half performance looked like England had come to Brazil to do nothing but hope to escape without too many wounds. Now, though, we have not one, but two wonder goals, scored in the stadium which is the spiritual home of the greatest football nation the world has known.

And the equally paradoxical fact was that Rooney’s goal helped Hodgson’s side secure a draw which looks impressive because of its setting when, in fact, they had been played off the park throughout the first half. It was also due to the fact that the Brazilians who had looked so much more dangerous began piling on substitutes and lost their way.

But perhaps the dazzle with which Neymar threatened Joe Hart’s goal in the first half is little more than that – mere glitter. Certainly, the Brazilians are worried they are not as good as they should be.

Wayne Rooney, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Frank Lampard celebrate on a night where England struggled

That impression was confirmed once Hodgson sent on Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and shifted Phil Jones out of midfield to right back. Then, his side finally looked like they could make a game of this celebratory occasion.

Throughout the first half, this had been another of those increasingly regular matches when our national side puts on a display of its new, but not very inspiring or interesting way of playing.

Bereft of creative talent and shredded of so many key players by injury, they seemed incapable of offering anything more than the damage-limitation exercise which they got away with for nearly an hour. Hodgson had set up a 4-5-1 formation and it looked like the idea was simply to get back on the night flight across the Atlantic relatively unscathed.

In truth, that idea only remained intact by half-time because of the excellence of England’s goalkeeper, Hart.

At that point, you wondered if anyone would really miss England if they do not make it back here next summer.

After Oxlade-Chamberlain’s equaliser and then Rooney’s instant of inspiration, though, England got their glimpse of Brazil’s footballing Promised Land. Now they know precisely what they will miss if they fail in the Autumn.