Current incumbent Graham Arnold may need to trump that by handing a cap to 16-year-old Manchester City rookie Alex Robertson if Australia are to again thwart the Three Lions.

This is the dilemma facing Arnold as the exciting young midfielder - whose father Mark and grandfather Alexander both played for Australia - is feverishly being courted by the English ahead of next year’s Under-17 European Championships.

England coach Steve Cooper is intent on winning the allegiance of Robertson, who turned 16 in April and already has a goal and two caps for England Under-16s. He is also eligible for his birth country Scotland and Peru through his mother.

The Joeys have qualified for November’s FIFA Under-17 World Cup in Brazil - unlike England, Scotland or Peru - and coach Trevor Morgan wants Robertson on board.

FIFA eligibility rules, though, are bringing matters to a head.

Robertson is free to represent Australia in a FIFA tournament but thereafter only able to make one more switch, meaning if he were to play for England again at next year’s Euros, or in any of the qualifiers, he would be lost to Australia forever.

All of which throws the ball back in Arnold’s court, with Australia next in action in Busan on June 7 in a friendly international against Korea Republic.

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Does he do a Thompson, who picked Kewell at 17 and seven months as a left-back against Chile in a friendly in Antofagasta back 1996 expressly to ward off the English?

Kewell played the full 90 minutes and was man of the match in a 3-0 loss.

Kewell’s English father Rod was happy for him to play for the Old Country, and a young Harry echoed similar sentiments before Thompson’s intervention.

The wily Scot Thompson was ahead of the curve, drafting in Kewell even though at the time he hadn’t yet cracked the Leeds United first team.

The rest, of course, is history.

While Robertson hasn’t played as much football this season for City’s academy side as he’d have liked because of injury, he’s hugely regarded by the Etihad hierarchy and is set to sign of fully professional four-year deal sometime in June.

He boasts England great Michael Owen as his agent and already has a lucrative long-term deal with Adidas.

Only injury prevented him joining a training camp under the auspices of Arnold in Turkey last year, a clear sign he’s on the radar.

It was a similar story when Morgan sought to pick him for the Under-17 World Cup qualifying tournament in Malaysia in September, with parent club City insisting he was unfit.

Morgan declined to comment when asked for this thoughts on the tug-of-war for Robertson, a reflection perhaps of the sensitivity of the situation.

The odds, though - barring Arnold’s direct intervention - may be stacking up against Australia.

It’s far more expedient for City to have Robertson in an England shirt, rather than flying across the world to represent Australia.

England’s St George’s Park training base is just a 90-minute drive from Manchester, the club’s influence cannot be discounted.

Robertson has been careful not to make any definitive statements on his international future, saying on a recent trip to Sydney - the city he called home between the ages of five and 12 - that he “wasn’t really thinking about it.”

The odds are that he is now.