U-17 World Cup: Sancho leaves England to join Dortmund

Kolkata, Oct 16 (IANS) England U-17 coach Steve Cooper confirmed on Monday that star attacking midfielder Jadon Sancho has left the team's campaign at the ongoing FIFA U-17 World Cup and returned to Germany to join his club Borussia Dortmund for the ongoing German Bundesliga season.

"Jadon's gone home. Dortmund requested he got back to Germany. It is disappointing for him. He was relishing the chance to play for a World Cup. It was disappointing to see him go. He might start for Dortmund over the weekend," Cooper said on the eve of England's pre-quarterfinal tie against Japan here on Tuesday.

Sancho trained with the England U-17 team on Sunday but was not seen during practice on Monday.

Sancho was only allowed to attend the tournament on condition that he would return to his club after the group stages.

However, according to a report by The Sun recently, the FA and England bigwigs tried to persuade the Dortmund management to change their stance and let the 17-year-old stay to hopefully fire them to World Cup glory.

Sancho, who was handed Ousmane Dembele's No.7 jersey upon his arrival in Dortmund from Manchester City, was an unused substitute during the recent 2-1 win over FC Augsburg.

England had a perfect record in the opening stages of the U-17 World Cup, winning against Mexico, Chile and Iraq in Group F.

They scored as many as 11 goals and conceded just two leading to talk of them being one of the favourites to win the title along with France and Brazil.