Osman makes England debut

Leon Osman completed 90 minutes for England last night in his first international appearance.

Alongside fellow Evertonian Leighton Baines, the duo were two of only five players to complete the full match against Sweden on Wednesday night.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic may have stolen the headlines with his four goals, even trumping the achievement of Steven Gerrard collecting his 100th cap, but for us the night was all about Leon Osman.

At 31 years old, Osman is not the oldest player to ever make his England debut. He's not even the oldest Everton player to make their England debut as that achievement goes to Dickie Downs (credit to evertonresults.com for that fine bit of statto information!), but England caps for the over thirties is a rare achievement these days.

England bosses of course are always looking with one eye on the right now and one eye on the future and you'd have forgiven Roy Hodgson's England, who have the new Football Association training facility all set up with a heavy focus on youth football to concentrate on the players of tomorrow rather than those who can do the business right now.

But credit to Hodgson he gave Osman his chance and he took it. There was no visible nerves on show from the Evertonian, he settled into the role like it was he who had been there a hundred times before.

It was the kind of performance that will keep him in thoughts of Hodgson, despite the poor scoreline overshadowing his individual performance.

'I thought it was a good performance, For large periods I can be more than satisfied.

'Many players who got a chance came out with great credit. For long periods we were quite dominant and in control.' Hodgson told the The BBC.

Osman wasn't the only man to win his first cap for England on the night however. Steven Caulker and Raheem Sterling also made their first starts for England, whilst Ryan Shawcross, Carl Jenkinson and Wilfried Zaha came on as substitutes.

'I thought the debutants were good, all of them did fine and I am certainly a wiser man than before this game, going into 2013.' he concluded.

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