Jadon Sancho's dazzling Dortmund performance has given Gareth Southgate a dilemma ahead of Euro 2024... he should at least watch the Man United exile in Paris next week, writes CRAIG HOPE

Gareth Southgate would do well to book a Eurostar to Paris on Tuesday. For there, he might just find a Euros star.

Jadon Sancho has given the England boss a decision to make. It may be an easy decision, given Southgate last picked the winger nearly three years ago and had misgivings over attitude and time-keeping.

But he cannot ignore the best-performing Englishman in the last four of the Champions League without giving thought to the prospect of a recall. Never mind the best Englishman, Sancho was better than the French, Germans, Portuguese and Brazilians during Borussia Dortmund’s 1-0 win over Paris Saint-Germain on Wednesday.

In German newspaper Bild, he was the only player awarded a merit rating of 1, their highest score and reserved for outstanding contributions. In truth, though, those on the ground here in Germany did not see it coming.

On the eve of the game, football writer Cedric Gebhardt, of the Ruhr Nachrichten newspaper, told the BBC: ‘Sancho lacks the ease and confidence of his first spell at Dortmund. He doesn’t dribble as often and he also lacks pace and loses the ball too often.’

It was not a left-field opinion, and fans have – or had - reservations about the idea of re-signing Sancho from Manchester United, where he will return this summer when his loan spell expires. The consensus, at least before Wednesday’s first leg, was that he was not the same player as before.

That was supported by his decent, if not spectacular performance in the quarter-final win over Atletico Madrid. As Mail Sport noted this week: ‘There is something of Jack Grealish Version 2.0 about Sancho now, the safe model who looks shorn of expression.’

Grealish, among the contenders for an attacking-midfield berth in Southgate’s squad, can no longer play like Sancho did versus PSG. Nor can Marcus Rashford. In fact, what he achieved - 13 completed dribbles, the most in a semi-final since Lionel Messi in 2008 - is unique. Modern players don’t do that anymore. They are programmed to be risk-averse, to keep possession within a wider team structure.

At a major tournament, risk and reward is sometimes the only strategy left for a coach. A dribbler can bypass those opposition structures, too. Would Sancho be the perfect impact player in such a scenario?

But maybe that is why he stands little chance of changing Southgate’s mind. Before the first game of Euro 2020 against Croatia at Wembley, Sancho is said to have reacted petulantly to being left out of the starting XI. What use selecting a player to impact from the bench when he doesn’t want to be a substitute?

During a post-match interview with Jamie Carragher for US network CBS, Sancho admitted he retains England ambitions. Could it be that his humbling spell at United has brought maturity, wings clipped but with it a more grounded personality? They certainly speak well of the 24-year-old as a human being here.

He is not Jude Bellingham - the Real Madrid star is a man to Sancho’s boy - but he has shone brighter than his former Dortmund team-mate on the same stage this week. And here is another consideration - while Bellingham and others have looked a little jaded at times of late, Sancho is fresh. This was only his 20th game of the season after spending the first half of the campaign in cold storage at Old Trafford.

But will Southgate continue to give him the cold shoulder?  At the very least he should make a trip to the red-hot surrounds of the Parc des Princes next week. He went to see Jordan Henderson play for Ajax, after all.

Should Sancho again catch fire in Paris, it will leave the England boss with a burning dilemma.