Marcus Rashford's compassion over school meals has separated him from a government with huge problems, according to football writer Daniel Harris.
Harris spoke of his delight of a man 'sat in his garden in shorts, socks and sliders' taking on the Conservative government - and winning.
"I don't think that Tory government was looking for the footballers to do anything. I think they were looking to misdirect from their own culpability for the absolute mess that was coronavirus in the UK," Harris said of Matt Hancock's earlier criticisms of the sport.
"What Matt Hancock was doing when he was talking about footballers was saying 'look over there', because he thought they were an easy target.
"Here is what you have in football: on the playing side, football is a meritocracy. There is a reason why you have more people of colour and working-class people in football than you have anywhere else.
"The reason for that is that it is a meritocracy; you cannot deny how good someone is at football, because why would you want to? There is so much money in football that no owner is prepared to do that anymore."
Marcus Rashford
Manchester United's Marcus Rashford reacts after the final whistle during the Premier League match at the Etihad Stadium, Manchester.Harris believes Hancock was attempting to focus the ire on footballers in the way that 'his party has been doing for decades and centuries."
If that was the plan, then that has backfired.
"The last thing Matt Hancock wanted was Marcus Rashford taking on the government and showing the government up. But that is what happened."
There was another element that particularly pleased Harris.
"In retrospect, there was a particular purity about Marcus Rashford. Partly because he is Marcus Rashford, but partly because reducing everyone to this single issue, saying 'I don't want people to suffer how I suffered.'"
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