Wayne Rooney back at the centre of the action as Everton take narrow lead to Slovakia in Europa League

Everton 1 Ruzomberok 0: A packed Goodison Park witnessed the Prodigal Son's return, but it was Leighton Baines who found the breakthrough

Wayne Rooney's first game back at Everton ended in a narrow victory (Getty)

Wayne Rooney’s first game back for Everton, like his last for Manchester United, was in the Europa League. Then, it was the night he lifted the trophy in Stockholm but he had spent the match, like he had spent most of the season, on the sidelines. He confessed to not feeling part of the celebrations.

This was at the very beginning of the competition, the third qualifying round before August had even begun, but Rooney would have felt wanted, starting at centre-forward, the focus of every camera lens. He did not finish as a centre-forward and his first competitive game for Everton in 13 years was not the stuff of heroes. He had spent hour upon hour on the bikes at his brother-in-law’s spinning studio to get fit for his comeback. But will and desire alone are never enough.

The first leg was won by another of Everton’s thirty-somethings. Ruzomberok had just failed to open the scoring when Jan Maslo’s header was tipped on to the bar by Maarten Stekelenburg and nerves were creeping around Goodison. Then, a half-cleared corner broke to Leighton Baines on the edge of the area and the Everton captain swung one of the game’s most powerful left foots. The ball took a deflection and finished in the Gwladys Street net. But for a fabulous save from Kevin Mirallas, by Matus Macik, there would have been a second and Everton would be taking more than a vulnerable, one-goal lead into the second leg. They may still have only one game in this competition.

Baines' goal gave Everton a slender lead (Getty)

Everton were facing one of the Europa League’s archetypal teams. You would need to be a subscriber to World Soccer magazine to have heard of them and a map of eastern Europe to find them.

Ruzomberok is a modest town in northern Slovakia, where Josef Venglos, the one-time manager of Celtic and Aston Villa, grew up and the birthplace of Peter Lorre, who played alongside Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca.

Their football team had been good enough to have eliminated Brann Bergen in the previous round after losing the first leg in their own stadium. The demise of Glasgow Rangers to the fourth-best team in Luxembourg at even earlier stage of this competition shows what happens when unknowns are underestimated. The third-best team in Slovakia proved themselves to be more than just competent. The first serious save of the match, less than 10 minutes before the interval, was made by Stekelenburg.

Ruzomberok put in a creditbale performance (Getty)

Goodison was full for Ruzomberok. Most came because it was Everton, some were propelled by the optimism of the heavy summer spending, many had come to see their boy back.

The summer of 2017 may come to be seen as one in which Everton lost a 23-year-old home-produced talent in Ross Barkley and gained one who will be 32 in October. On the surface, the deal is not a good one but Rooney’s return in an age when hundreds of millions are being banded around for the Mbappés and the Neymars underlines football’s essential romance.

Yes, there was rust to be kicked from his boots and of his three shots in the first half, one saw him slip and another saw him hit only thin, early-season air. But, more importantly, Wayne Rooney was at the centre of things in a way he had rarely been at Manchester United under Jose Mourinho. He was home.